Had my normal breakfast. I did some computer work, then left at 8:38 in the Jeep by myself because J wanted to stay home in the RV today.

I went to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum at 8:59. I photographed a Harris's hawk being held by a docent just outside the entrance gate. I got some nice images, but because you've seen a Harris's hawk yesterday, I won't put one in this blog entry. I showed our membership pass and entered the facility, then went to the mountain enclosures and photographed the Mexican wolves. They were in the shade again, but they were still! A truly friendly docent came over and struck up a nice conversation. She used to be into nature photography, so maybe that's why she wasn't as offensive as the "friendly" docent woman the first day.

Then I went to the Raptor Free Flight Program. (You may read more about the Raptor Free Flight Program on my blog entry for November 23, 2009.) They flew the two Chihuahuan ravens, a great horned owl, a gray hawk, and a ferruginous hawk. I started to leave the area as soon as the flight portion was over because I had already gotten enough marginal images of the ferruginous hawk being held by a handler on the wrong side of the path (it was back lit) after the program. I high-tailed it back after I saw the handler carry the ferruginous hawk across the path where the spectators were so that she, and the hawk, were on the correct side of the path (front lit)! I was able to get some great shots of the hawk using the 500 and extension tubes (left). :)
I went back to the Jeep and got my zoo macro setup. (You may read more about my zoo macro setup on my blog entry for November 24, 2009.) It was nice to have a Wimberley M-1 module that attached firmly to the lower part of the Kirk L-bracket. Then I went to the reptile building. The Sonoran desert sidewinder was in a perfect location within its enclosure to capture its whole body (left). The 90 Tilt-Shift lens let me align the plane of focus with the snake's body to have more of it in focus than would be possible without tilting.

I had lunch of Clif Bars on a bench in the shade near the reptile building. It was nice to take a break while waiting for the snakes to move into different positions.

I went back to the Jeep and got the 500 to get ready for the afternoon Raptor Free Flight Program. On my way back into the museum, I stopped to photograph a male American kestrel. Apparently, one gets to see a kestrel at point blank range two out of every three days here. :) It's amazing what light on a subject will do! I liked the images much better than the ones I took yesterday in the shade.

They flew the four Harris's hawks for the afternoon Raptor Free Flight Program, and I was able to capture some nice flight shots.
Then I went to the walk-in aviary, and there wasn't much activity, so I went to the walk-in hummingbird aviary. There were several hummers flying about to feed and perch, but the mixed light made photography difficult. Plus, the 500 with 1.4x and extension tubes still had a rather large minimum focus distance for the facility.

I went back to the walk-in aviary, and this time there was more activity. I was able to get my first good images of a flicker (below left) and also photographed a Masked Northern Bobwhite — an endangered species that was saved from extinction.


Then I photographed the desert bighorn sheep. The ram was following one female all around the enclosure hoping that she was ready to mate. He's demonstrating the flehmen response in the image above right. The flehmen response is a particular type of curling of the upper lip to facilitate the transfer of pheromones and other scents to their vomeronasal organ. In males, it's usually associated with mating season because it helps them sense when females are ready to mate. I left the museum at 4:49.

I returned to the RV around 5:10. J left in the Jeep around 5:15 to go to McDonald's to use their Wi-Fi. She said she wasn't hungry and I was on my own for dinner. I downloaded images from today and took a shower. Then I did a quick downselect in iView.

I had dinner around 6:15 of leftover pork chops and rice, and broccoli, then did the dishes.

I worked up a blog entry. J returned around 7:45. I cleaned up some files on my MacBook Pro so I'd have more disk space to improve performance, then selected and processed four images for a blog entry.