Day Two - Unfortunately Lacking Haikus

I feel the fool. After typing up the entirety of this blog in word (along with a wonderful spell checker), it has come to my attention that copy-paste does not transfer well between my (horribly outdated) version of windows and this text window. Needless to say, I'm mildly upset by this, but shall now endeavor to copy it verbatim from my notes. At the very least, it gives me a chance to edit before posting.

Today we visited the Desert Museum. The trip there was a fantastic drive through a winding mountain road. Although a bit more perilous than I'm used to, (I was rather white knuckled through some of the turns), I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. I was further reassured / mortified when professor Arion commented that he used to bike race along this particular road, only going the opposite (uphill) direction. I was appropriately flabbergasted, although it didn't last; the view was too amazing to allow myself more than a moment of amazement.

The Desert Museum itself is a rather unorthodox museum. The exhibits are blended (mostly) seamlessly into the natural habitat of the creatures. The entrance of the museum was more proper; the birds were contained in aviaries, of which there was one for a variety of birds, and one specifically for hummingbirds. The larger animals, specifically black bears, cougars, and the sort, were contained in large open air exhibits. Likewise for prairie dogs and amphibious / aquatic creatures. But the latter half of the museum was a series of trails, along which fences were placed. The habitats were otherwise (from my observations) unaltered.

It was here, outside of the museum proper, that the harris hawk show took place. The show started with two hawks, a male and a female, who flew through the air (a process which marks territory). After a short amount of time, a third juvenile male hawk joined the hunting team. By the end of the show, a fourth hawk had joined the group (although I did not notice when (s)he joined the hunting party, nor did the MC identify his/her gender). The hawks soared around, either alone or as a pair, using saguaro cacti commonly as a perch. The MC stressed that the harris hawks were the only raptors that hunted as a matriarchal team, a feat which was demonstrated when the birds landed near heavy underbrush. Although the actual hunt was obscured from view, it was clearly successful as one of the males flew to the top of a cactus with his prize: a small animal which was obscured from view by the Male's wing. The MC concluded the show with a quick explanation of why the population of city harris hawks was on the decline. As the creatures are fond of high perches, during their hunts and during shows of dominance they would land atop unsafe utility poles, upon which point they would be electrocuted to death. With a plea to contact your local utility company in the case of sighting a hawk, we were left with a few more hours to spend in the beautiful park.

The latter half of the museum contained (in addition to the show), fenced in areas for a type of warthog, who's name i cannot remember for the life of me, as well as coyotes (no sightings). The trip to the museum culminated to one last venture to the gift shop, where I had to fight the urge to purchase prickly pear cactus marmalade. Although it's brethren had bitten me in the knee during yesterday's hike, devouring a relative seemed a bit vindictive.

While on our ride back, and after again containing my amazement that any human, nonetheless professor Arion dared to bike these roads (successfully), the whole group stopped at an observation post. A short walk up a fairly steep slope lead us to the top of one of the lower peaks, where I snapped numerous pictures. What truly surprised me was the level of visibility we had; Tuscon was easily in view, as was the entirety of the Desert Museum and much beyond (save what was obscured by other peaks). Arion posed an approximation question, namely "How many cacti are in view?", a reasonable question that has thus far thwarted me. As I just finished mentioning, the visibility was amazing (much better than even the clearest day I recall in Illinois / Wisconson), and my gauge of distance is already fairly weak. As such, I shall submit my answer of "A lot."