Dave and I visited the Arboretum on March 8, 2014. This post has some commentary and photographs.
We made another visit back in January. I didn’t post anything back them, but I have included some pictures from that trip in this post. There weren’t many birds on that trip, but I got my first photograph of a Hermit’s Thrush. I think it looks similar to an American Robin, which is in the same family (i.e. the Thrush family).
On the March trip we were hoping to see (and photograph) desert wildflowers on the road to BTA. Some years the desert is carpeted with Desert Lupine, Desert Marigolds, and Poppies (Mexican Gold Poppies; Arizona Poppies). They weren’t there on this trip. We were probably a little too early in the season. Also, we haven’t gotten as much rain this winter as normal, so the flowers won’t be as plentiful.
Failing on the flowers, we headed to the Arboretum. There were a lot of Broad-billed Hummingbirds. There were a few Costas Hummingbirds, and I got my first picture of one. The Vermilion Flycatcher put on a show for us. I got a ton of pictures. Unfortunately, for most of them I had the shutter speed set to 1/200, which is right on the edge with the 400 mm lens and image stabilization. They came out good, but not as sharp as I like. The ones I took with 1/500 came out sharper, but there weren’t as many to choose from. I picked one to post.
As is our custom, we headed to Casa Denogean in Superior for some authentic Mexican fare for lunch.
Here are the pictures:
