Arizona.....finishing up part 1

I need to do two last Tucson posts to finish up.  Sort of disconcerting to keep going back and forth between Indiana and Tucson photos.......if only it was that easy to go back and forth in real life!

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We decided to go back to Sweetwater one more time because it was such a cool place and we wanted to show Marie where it was.  So we met her there and walked around the ponds.

 This was another "life bird" for me....the Albert's Towhee.  To me it looks like a faded out female cardinal.

 We saw a pair of them.  They blend so well the photos aren't very good.

This was my biggest surprise!  I saw a small bird fly into a tree and took a couple photos of where I thought it was even though I couldn't really see it.  Turns out it was a Hummingbird and is sitting on a nest!  Had no idea until I looked at the photos.  No idea which hummingbird.  I only saw a couple this trip and didn't get an ID for either one.

 We saw several critters on our last day here.  I think this is an Arizona Cotton Rat....but not sure.

 This little guy is the Round-tailed Ground Squirrel.  I've seen him before.  So cute :-)

I guess this is another one, but it was a lot fatter looking and a bit bigger.  If it is something else, I haven't been able to discover what. (NOTE: Marie says they were Prairie Dogs...cool!)

 These two don't belong together......Blue-winged Teal on the left and Ruddy Duck on the right.

 They look comfortable.

I love those Cinnamon Teals!  There were Coots all over the place and it looks like everyone gets along well together. 

 The water was so clear I could watch his feet as he paddled.

 A Flicker way up high in a tree.

 Great-tailed Grackle.

 Moorhen

 A "mystery" sparrow....I see lots of those :-)  I don't have a western bird book here at home.  No idea what sparrow this is, but I enjoyed seeing him anyway.

 Same kind?

 I liked this Ruddy Duck photo for the squiggles in the water.  Wish I could remove the over-lapping green stems in the foreground.

 Red-winged Blackbird female

 Shoveler and Bufflehead

Shoveler and Cinnamon Teal 

 Shoveler pair......I like how they put their heads in and go around in circles.  Funny to watch!

 Solitary Sandpiper.  We saw two of them this day.

Turtle catching some sun.

The MetLife blimp with Snoopy on the front :-) 

We kept driving past this weather-vane, so I snapped a photo through the windshield.

One last Arizona post from the Saguaro National Park coming up soon.

Home just in time for spring.....

We got home from Arizona just in time for spring to be bursting out all over southern Indiana!  Glad we didn't miss my favorite flower show of the year.

 Our apple tree is putting out a few blooms this year despite the fact we need to prune it.  Last year there were no blossoms and no apples.

I wouldn't have put this photo first, but Blogger always puts them alphabetically and I was too lazy to try to move them all around....which I find hard to do once they are on the post.  Usually I post one photo at a time in the order I want them.

 The white flowering crab is gorgeous this year so I hope that means lots of apples for the Waxwings next January!

 The full view of it.  I would like to plant another one of these on the dam where the pink crab apple was blown down.

 Our lawn is in desperate need of the first mowing of the year!  While we were gone it burst out in "wildflower" weeds.....dandelions, clover, henbit, the little yellow star ones I don't know the name of, and the little white ones I don't know the name of :-)

 The Dogwood 

 The Forsythia bushes are dropping their flowers and they look like little yellow flowers growing in the lawn :-)

 A few Grape Hyacinths.

 Henbit taking over the yard.....our neighbors are probably appalled at how the lawn looks at the moment.

 The lilacs are blooming!  I love the lilacs.

 Another shot of them.

 May Apples and Mystery Lilies coming up along the creek.

 Mike's blueberry bushes survived the winter and are beginning to flower.

 The Ornamental Cherry tree is just beginning to bloom.....more of it later when the tree is covered with these beautiful pink flowers.

 The Redbuds are lovey right now.  I only have a couple of wild ones down along our creek, but they are beautiful.

 Some tiny Jonquils that weren't done blooming.

 Violets.  I wish the color on this was better.  There isn't any sun shining today.

A closes-up of a few under the rhododendron bush.  Two colors....the dark purple and an almost white purple.

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I love visiting my sister in Arizona and seeing that part of the world, but it is always good to be back home!

Curve-billed Thrasher and misc......

Went for a drive yesterday looking for wildflowers....didn't find any, but I saw a new bird!

 This is a Curve-billed Thrasher.  I think you can see where it gets the name :-)

 We were stopped at a gas station and he was staking out this cactus and a post on the nearby fence.  We saw another one with him just as we were leaving.

 The faintly speckled breast is one of the distinguishing characteristics.

 The rest of the bird is very drab colored.  Fits the landscape out here perfectly.

 King of the cactus!

Side view down a bit lower than that cactus perch.

 I just liked how this cactus looked

 We passed at least 5 hawks up on the power poles on our drive.

 Off in the distance we could see the Kitt Peak Observatory.

 A distant shot of it.

I'm guessing this is an empty hawk's nest.

A cholla cactus.