If you are ever traveling and in the Tucson area, this is a great place to spend the day. It is mostly open air, so was open for limited numbers of visitors in spite of COVID-19. I did have to buy a timed ticket in advance, but once in could stay all day. The only thing slightly disappointing was that there were no docents or bird demonstrations. Here is the website in case you are ever in this area: https://www.desertmuseum.org/
Sorry, but I missed taking a photo of the entrance, but there is lots of parking, even for big RVs. This is the back of the visitor center/gift shop building.
This is a much less manicured botanical garden than the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix, but while they have added a lot of cactus and other plants, the intent is to show the desert in as natural way as possible. So, there are less specimen plants and a few weeds here and there, but that is natural.
This is an organ pipe cactus. Organ Pipe National Park is about 200 miles west of here, by the way, but you do not see many organ pipe cacti in this part of Arizona.
There is a hummingbird building and I took well over a dozen photos, however, hummingbirds move fast, so this is the only one which was not horribly blurred!
There is a separate bird house, and I did get a fairly good photo of the Gambel's Quail and a grouse.
I spent about four hours here, walking around and having lunch, plus buying a few souvenirs. Near the cafe in the back, there is a small shop that sells beautiful desert scenery screen-printed t-shirts, so I get one or two each trip.
This is not really a zoo, but they do have some desert animals. This is one or two female big-horn sheep. There is also a male, so maybe some babies someday???
Hardly anything in bloom right now, but many desert plants will be in bloom from March to June.
Mexican grey wolves are endangered, but they have one here. I was surprised at how big he was.
Last shot until next trip!
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