Sorry! I've been busy at work and with car troubles. Come to think of it, ituri's had the same issues. I'll post something soon.
Since my Arizona adventure only finally ended today, I should soon have time to pick up where jbnbsn99 left off.
Night time drive. I apologize for the delay in posting updates from the trip (now 3 weeks hence). I promise that this post will make up for it! After arriving back in Phoenix, we rested for a bit but were still restless. Ituri had suggested earlier in the day it might be fun to drive out into the mountains just outside of Phoenix to see if we could find some night-time mammals. I wouldn't get this opportunity everyday, so I jumped at the chance. I was hoping to find mule deer, collared peccaries, ringtails, and anything else that might show up. Night fell. We warmed up the car again (ok a different car this time - one with working suspension), and drove out of town. Not knowing the lay of the land, I really didn't know where we were going. I left that in the hands of our driver (Ituri). I think we headed south. Slowly, the city faded away. Shadows of mountains appeared in the distance, and we climbed. The road narrowed. We were hugging the wall of a mountain. Being from flat-as-a-pancake Texas where the women have more curves than the landscape, I was like a kid at Christmas. I kept my eyes opened. Ituri - "This is the bridge where I found some Gila Monsters back when I was into herping." jbnbsn99 - "Think we'll find any tonight." Ituri - "Have you been outside?" jbnbsn99 - "Oh right, it's cold out. They're reptiles..." I decided to keep looking out the window. Nothing appeared. After miles of driving, we approached a small lake used for fishing. Next to it was a tiny village (population under 10 I believe). Ituri can fill in that detail. Still no mammals. We turned around to head home. Maybe something would turn up. "Ituri, stop!" '"Why, what's wrong?" "Nothing just stop." "You ok?" "Yeah, I just want to do something." "What?" "You'll see." I smiled. There was something I had wanted to do for years. All along the drive, I had noticed the blackness of the scenery. Blackness I couldn't ever recall seeing in Texas. We got out of the car and looked up. "Ituri, turn off the car's headlights." Pitch black. Except it wasn't. The sky was open before us. The stars had finally come out. I looked in awe at the heaven above. My soul wept at the beauty of the universe. My eyes watered. It was a spiritual peace that I had never known. As a non-religious person, I felt what other people feel through their belief in a deity. I saw it in the glory of the knowable universe, and I was glad. I soaked in the sight. But, I knew we had to head back. "I'm ready to go back now," I said. "Me too." We made our way back to the city. Back to the man-made. Back to the lights. Our night drive yielded no mammals. It did yield a sight better than any animal I could possibly imagine. I was happy.
That was pretty impressive, and definitely something I took for granted growing up there. For the sake of clarification, the destination was east of town, into the heart of the famed Superstition Mountains, a beautiful and glorious place. And you're wrong there was one mammal, the unidentified bats that buzzed over our heads, clicking away as we gazed into the heavens. I tried that drive one more time after you left to similar results but instead of an unidentified bat it was an unidentified kangaroo-rat.
Alright, I'll take the next post: The next morning we rise early yet again to continue the mad dash to see all that we can in the short time span we had. Our morning destination was the Riparian Preserve at Gilbert Water Ranch. This groundwater recharge facility cum nature reserve is the prime urban birding site in the Phoenix Metro area (in my opinion at least). The goal, to pick up all the lowland desert birds that jbnbsn99 had not yet seen. Anna's Hummingbirds, Abert's Towhees and the like. Time was short because after a couple days galavanting across the Arizona wild lands, parenting duty had finally caught up with me. We needed to be done in time for my wife to get to go do the things she would like to do (honestly, she puts up with an awful lot). The birding was good and in a short time racked up close to 60 different species including a Phoenix area specialty, the Rosy-faced Lovebird. This small southwest African parrot has become established in the area from escaped pets and has recently been added to the ABA checklist (so it is countable). The one bird I had hoped for was a no show however. A Black-and-white Warbler had recently been reported at this site and I figured it was an excellent chance to pick up this usually eastern bird. From there on out our adventures then also included my children. This rag tag bunch of exuberant small people would keep us on our toes and do their best to make jbnbsn99 feel as uncomfortable as possible.
Oddly enough, as a school teacher, I'm not uncomfortable around children. I am quite good at making other people uncomfortable.
At the Riparian center I was only able to pick up 3.5 new species; the three Ituri mentioned plus a pair of Mexican Mallards (aka Mexican Ducks). The Mexican Mallard is not considered a full species by the ABA and AOU, but DNA testing shows that it is far closer to the Mottled Duck and the American Black Duck than it is to the common "Northern" Mallard. This is a definitive split waiting to happen. P.S. I just checked my list, and I picked up a Dunlin at the center as well.
I've thoroughly enjoyed this thread, but this last post had me literally laughing out loud. Thanks for that. I visited many of the places you described (including eating a chimichanga at El Charro) in May 2012. Most of the trip was for birding, and I got 50+ lifers including 5 new owls. It was one of the most interesting places I've even been; I think only Denali National Park in Alaska was better.
I've only been to the Riparian Preserve once since I'm not really a birder, but if the rosy faced lovebird has been spotted there I might have to give it another go. Most of my days off from work lately have been spent hunting for the Salt River herd (wild horses) so maybe I should change it up a bit.
Oh fine... you win. There was really only one last thing on the docket for me before my flight home, and that was a visit to the Phoenix Zoo. I had some idea of what this zoo held in store for me, but I was anxious to see how it stood up. A month on from the trip, I'm left with some overall impressions. The Arizona Trails area is quite nice, probably my favorite in the zoo. It has a nice overall collection of native Arizona fauna. The bighorn sheep exhibits are spectacular, almost too much so. The sheep are situated on two large natural bluffs. It's almost too big for a normal zoo exhibit. The sheep are like pin-pricks on the landscape. The Spectacled Bear exhibit is quite nice, but had been recently defoliaged to repair the fence. This meant a lot of strange viewing through chain link that normally wouldn't be there. Finally, the orang exhibit. Much has been said on here about it, but for my view I quite liked it. I think it may be the most effective orang exhibit I've seen. Far better than the monstrosity going up in Indy, that's for sure. However, the zoo as a whole left me with a weird vibe. I didn't feel like I was in a zoo inasmuch as I was in a theme park like Six Flags. There was a highly commercial element to it. It left a weird taste in my mouth. I know it is a privately run entity, but it was too gimicky with rides and amusements. The overall animal collection was really rather small for such a large zoo. It could have been far more. And with all that said, were I to rank the zoos in Arizona I would go: 1. ASDM 2. Reid Park 3. Phoenix After rushing through the zoo, I made my way back to the airport to find my flight had been delayed once again.
If you think Phoenix Zoo is too gimmicky with rides and amusements, it is a good thing you did not go to the other zoo in the Phoenix area!
