Joe and Mary Ann's personal web site

Mary Ann and I went to the Desert Botanical Garden (DBG) on December 13, 2022. We hadn’t been there for quite a while. We got there at about 9:00 AM, and left at about 11:30. It was a cold morning, and it had rained the day before.

Dave and I went to the Pinal Mountains on October 31. Dave wanted to get some drone footage of the fall colors. I was happy to go along. I hadn’t been to the Pinals since the Telegraph fire last year. It was a pretty bad fire, destroying 51 structures, and closing all the roads. It’s one of my favorite spots, and I was anxious to see how it fared.

Mary Ann and I went to the Verde River on October 18. We stopped at three recreation sites, which are all close together: Needle Rock Recreation Site, Verde River Recreation Site, and Box Bar Recreation Site. Needle Rock is about 50 minutes from home, and we got there at about 7:45, and left at about 2:00.

Mary Ann and I went to the Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch (RPWR) on Wednesday, October 5. We got there at 7 and left at about 10. It was really nice weather in the morning, but by 10:00 it was starting to warm up.

Dave, Fr. Charlie, and I went to Mingus Mountain on August 11, 2022. It’s a 2 hr drive from Fr. Charlie’s place, and we got there at about 8:30 AM. It was my first trip to Mingus Mountain. We wanted to find some cool weather, and we wanted Dave to finally see the Red-faced Warbler, so Mingus Mountain fit the bill. Mingus Mountain is just off Highway 89A, between Prescott Valley and Cottonwood.

Fr. Charlie and I went to Woods Canyon Lake on July 7, 2022. The lake is on the Mogollon Rim at an elevation of 7,500 ft, so it’s a nice place to get some cool weather on an unusually hot day in Phoenix. It’s a two hour drive, and we got there at about 8:30 AM.

I’ve been asked about our fig tree, and pruning it, so I thought I would do a post. If you’re not interested in fig trees, then you won’t be interested in this post.

Mary Ann, Fr. Charlie, and I went to Mt. Ord on June 16. We got to FR1688 (Forest Road 1688) at about 8:20 AM. We met Ann Leight there, who is a prolific birder and posts a lot on ebird.org. She is a regular at Mt. Ord.

Mary Ann, Fr. Charlie, and I, went to Boyce Thompson Arboretum (BTA) on May 23, 2022. We got there at around 8:00 AM, and left at about 11:30, and then had lunch at Los Hermanos in Superior. I dropped off 19 ‘Birds of Boyce Thompson Arboretum’ posters at the gift shop for them to sell (for more details on the poster see here).

This post covers the third, and last, day of our trip to SE Arizona. We went to Portal, Arizona, which is a popular Arizona birding spot. It appears to me that the town’s main business is birding. Portal is in the Chiricahua Mountains, and it is home to birds whose range overlaps with Mexico. One of the attractions is the different species of hummingbirds. Fifteen species have been reported, of which about 8 are commonly seen there (depending on the time of year).