#11 Bird watching Gilbert, Arizona and Chandler, Arizona

Awhile back I decided that bird watching might be a fun thing to try out, so while in Arizona we did just that.  The first day we visited the Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch in Gilbert, Arizona.  This was a little bit of a chilly and cloudy day.  This preserve has multiple ponds and trails with plenty of benches and places to watch birds.  

On day two we visited Veterans Oasis Park in Chandler, Arizona. This day was excessively hot with not so much shade. The ponds here were harder to get to and watch for birds.  At both places I got a bird list which I didn’t really use while there. I also got my camera ready and looked for and tried to take pictures of as many different birds as I could.  Then when I got home I compared my pictures to pictures on allaboutbirds.org and used my bird lists to identify the different birds.

Here are the birds I got good pictures of and could identify. (I think)

 American Coot

 

 Cinnamon Teal

 

 Great Egret

 Least Sandpiper

 

 Black-necked Stilt

 

 Gadwall

 

   American Avocet

   Canada Goose

Mallard

Gambel's Quail

 

Snowy Egret

 

 Great-tailed Grackle

I had a lot of fun spending time outside looking for birds, taking pictures and then trying to identify each bird. Bird watching is definitely something I would enjoy doing in the future.

# 10 Red Butte Gardens Lego display - Salt Lake City Utah

We have been here before and it’s one of my favorite botanic gardens to visit but this time we had to go because there was a Nature Connects Lego display. It was a cool and rainy day. When we paid for our tickets they give us a map and a list of Lego sculptures. We had a nice walk around the Gardens taking pictures of the plants and Legos. 

My favorite Lego sculptures were a bald eagle, a hummingbird and a rather large butterfly. All of these Lego displays were quite neat and interesting that somebody could use Legos and build something so amazing.