On November 26th we drove 126 miles to Usery Mountain Regional Park in Mesa, AZ, a favorite spot. We were last here in November 2010.
This time we were here alone and facing east instead of north.
We did put up the bird feeder, which you can see off the awning on the right.
We have a view of the "Phoenix" arrow to the north.
Looking south to our campsite.
Not long after we were set up we found out John and Jane pulled into Lazydays in Tucson. The four of us did not coordinate so we missed them.
The bird list for this season.
Some Mourning Doves on ocotillo.
The "Bird Lady's" feeders were busy.
Some of the birds by our motorhome once they finally found our feeder.
A Curved-bill Thrasher really liked our feeder.
Thrasher at Bird Feeder Video (1.46MB WMV)
We did get at least one Gila Woodpecker at the feeder but only have this photo of one in ocotillo.
We also saw other birds including quail, but did not get good photos.
A ground squirrel.
It was able to jump to the top of a barrel cactus and eat the new growth.
One evening we took a night ranger hike and hoped the "handheld night landscape" mode on the Nikon p510 would work well. It did not but we had lots of moonlight and had no trouble seeing the trail during the walk.
Here are a few photos from the hike. This is the lights of Mesa to the south.
The moon.
A telephoto of the moon. This was a handheld photo.
The night hike was fun, but we should do it sometime on our own and take a tripod for photos.
Sunsets were great here, as they were the last time.
We enjoyed our short stay in Mesa. It allowed us to scope out some places for our three month stay this winter and we had a good time.
We would have also loved to have spent time with John and Jane in Tucson, but we missed each other and will get together another time.
We ate out once while in Mesa, a new place for us called Cafe Mix, which serves Greek food and was very good.
Now we are heading back to California.
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