J wanted to relax this morning to make sure she was feeling better, so I made instant coffee to go and left by myself in the Jeep at 6:57.

I had Clif Bars for breakfast on my way ...

To Sweetwater Wetlands at 7:25. It's a water treatment facility for Tucson's Reclaimed Water System and has become a wonderful urban wildlife wetlands habitat. There are trails that circle two of the shallow pools and provide a great birding experience. Unfortunately, it's not very good for photography because the ponds are lined with cattails blocking most of the view of the ponds from close to water level. Most of my interesting shots were taken from one of the viewing platforms that extend out into the ponds. In addition to pied-billed grebe (below left) and American coot (below right), I saw Gambel's quail, American white pelican, ruddy duck, cinnamon teal, bufflehead, Northern shoveler, common moorhen, red-winged and yellow-headed blackbird, great-tailed grackle, black-chinned hummingbird, and a Harris's hawk. I left around 10:00.


I stopped at a Fry's Food & Drug on the way back to the RV to pick up some groceries.

I returned the RV around 11:00 and J was feeling back to normal. I downloaded the images I took this morning and downselected them in iView.

I had lunch around 11:55 then worked up a blog entry. I downselected the images from this morning in Capture One (C1). I processed images for a stock submission. We left in the Jeep around 4:05 and ...

Went to the Sweetwater Wetlands around 4:30. I got some nice images of the gadwall, red-winged blackbird, and great-tailed grackle. I also got better images this time of the black-chinned hummingbird (below left) because I brought along my extension tubes so I could get closer to it. As we were heading to the Jeep to leave, we saw a Harris's hawk perched on the fence near the parking lot. We tried to photograph it, but it flew and joined another one further away on the fence. As I was approaching them, a third Harris's hawk took off from down in the ditch behind the fence and then perched much closer than the first two (below right).


We returned to the RV at 6:55. I downloaded the images I took while the hot water heater was running then took a shower. J took a shower while I downselected the images from this afternoon in iView.

We had dinner around 7:45 of J's Black Bean Burritos and fresh guacamole. It was delicious!

After I did the dishes, I had some Asbach Uralt while processing the last of the images for a stock submission. I started to upload the 200 images for the stock submission, then downselected the images from this afternoon in Capture One (C1). We watched the second half of the movie Duma on DVD.