The Arboretum, Again

I really do love it there. It's been completely worth it for the membership. Madre Dos came and stayed the night last Friday so we could head out before the scorching sun. 

There was a bird walk being hosted and my madre dos has all the accoutrements for bird watching.
 

 

I'm not going to lie, bird watching used to seem pretty dumb to me. However, my eyes were opened when I looked through madre dos's binoculars when we went with my French friends. Waaaaaaaaaay cooler when you can see the birds up close. Then my madre dos started  teaching me how to recognize some of the bird calls and it got even better. At least that's what J thinks.

 

It gives me the same kind of awesome I feel when I know the names of plants. But this gives the added bonus of trying to see the bird making the call. All of the sudden my brain could pick up on all of these squawks and chirps that were formerly just white noise.

So I was excited to go and check out some birds with my own maternal bird guide. I've never seen so many vultures in my life. I figured there must be some awesome rotting carcass around, but my expert told me they just like to play in the hot air vents.

 

I was also happy to see some flowers still hanging out despite the temperatures.

 

Some of the local wildlife also made an appearance.

To give you a little taste of the birder experience, see how many birds you can spot in this picture. Find out after the jump.

 

 
And the answers! The one all the way to the left is a Cooper's Hawk and it apparently had a nest a couple trees over.

 

 

How did you do?