Arizona Sonora Desert Museum

One day in Tuscon we went to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. The main reason this gets a separate post is they had a wonderful bird show called Raptors in Free Flight, and I have so many great pictures of the birds.

Trip Advisor says the museum could take 2-3 hours or all day. We loved it and spent all day there.

Once again, we learned a ton from the guides, such as the fact that saguaros have strong ribs to provide structural strength and an accordion-like surface.  Following rainstorms, this accordion-like surface swells, allowing them to store prodigious amounts of water.

The Arizona Sonora Desert Museum is both a botanical garden and a zoo, and we really enjoyed the animals. At the visitor center handlers brought in birds. This is a barn owl, which uses its exceptional hearing to capture prey.

This is a burrowing owl, who nests in burrows.

We actually saw a burrowing owl on the museum grounds.

A desert lizard.

This crane had been found injured and was brought into an animal rescue facility. The bird recovered, but it has a broken wing, so it cannot be released into the wild, and the bird now lives at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum.

We did not know there were ocelots in the Arizona desert, but we really liked this kitty!

The best thing at the museum was their Raptors in Free Flight show. It was amazing! The birds fly free, right over our heads! We could feel the wind caused by the beat of the wings as they zoomed past.

The first bird was a Gray Hawk.

Next was a Barn Owl.

I did not know that birds can flap their wings asymmetrically.

The last birds were a group of Harris’s Hawks. They are unusual raptors because they hunt cooperatively. They will take turns harassing a rabbit or squirrel, chasing it out of cover towards other family members, etc. They live in groups, with a defined pecking order. A mature female is the dominant bird and always gets to eat first. They were amazing fliers, going right over our heads.

Amazing birds, and it was fun taking photos of them!