We arrived here on February 15th this year, the earliest we’ve ever been out in Arizona. In the past we’ve spent maybe 5 weeks out here, not including driving time. This year, it’ll be a solid 8 weeks. Kim would come out for three months if I would agree but I feel this is a good compromise. Maybe sometime in the future we’ll be here longer but I’m not ready for that yet.
In 2023, we set-up camp on Feb. 20th and left for Hawaii on Feb. 22nd. So, we were out
here but not really here. In
fact, it was a year ago today, that we got our tattoos while in Hawaii commemorating
riding in all 50 states. Facebook has
been kind enough to remind me by sharing my memories with me.
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Both of
us did our normal walk routine. Kim
going much farther than me but I’m okay with that. Getting my knee back in the
habit of walking farther than from my sewing room to the kitchen. I think Kim would like to attempt one or both
5K walks we’ve done the last couple of years. I’ll be happy to be his
cheerleader.
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Today we decided to check out El Rio Preserve which was listed on a site
for birding opportunities. The Preserve
is in a neighborhood either at the eastern end of Marana or the western end of
Tucson. It’s like Detroit…Detroit is at
the center with all the suburbs radiating around it. This area is the same. Tucson is the hub; Marana
is one of the communities on the outskirts.
It was forecasted to be in the 80’s but cloudy the entire day. So, we left
at about 11 a.m., thinking the clouds would be our friend. Didn’t exactly turn out that way. It was partly cloudy which means it was
sometimes sunny.
Made for a very sweaty walk around
the reservoir. An interesting thing
about the reservoir: there was maybe a 4-foot-high stone berm around half of it
and the water was near the top of the berm. This put the water at almost shoulder level to
me as I walked around it on the path; made for a nice view for me but anyone
much shorter than me wouldn’t see much of what was in the water. If the berm wasn’t there, it looked like there
would be no walking path…it’d be underwater.
Not too many birds; a gila woodpecker, male and female cinnamon teals, a
couple of male green-winged teals, and a hummingbird. I don’t recognize the calls of many of the
birds out here, but I do know the sound of a hummer…and when I hear it at one
of these preserves, I've learned to look at the tops of nearby trees. Sure, enough, that’s where it was.
Update: Someone
identified the dancing duck as a Northern Pintail hen, which, if true, blows my
mating ritual theory right out of the water. (No pun intended)
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The air conditioning in the truck felt so good after our walk around the
Preserve BUT a stop at the Picacho Dairy Queen was the tastiest way to cool
off. “Peanut Buster Parfait with
extra peanuts and extra chocolate, please. I know I'll pay extra but the extra peanuts are the important part. Thank you.”
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We bought three more hummingbird feeders, bringing our total to six but
we only have five of them up in the tree. We have two feeders that don’t have a perch
around the bottom; I only put one of those up and stored the other one away.
All the new feeders we bought have perches on them because they seem to prefer
that style. It seems like it’d be nice to sit down while eating. Non-perch feeder wasn’t getting very much
action; we’ve had to fill the perch feeder twice already. Hummers were checking
out the new ones within 10 minutes of Kim putting them up.
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Kim has been out several times checking the sky but the clouds have a firm
hold on it. He thought if there was a
big enough open spot, he’d at least be able to get the big scope focused. But no chance of that tonight.
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