A quiet Saturday morning south into the Santa Rita Mountains was a good time to stop by the Paton Center for Hummingbirds in the small town of Patagonia.
A female Cardinal (according to Google Image search).
A Goldfinch.
A Warbler.
A White Breasted Nuthatch. I don’t name them, just take the photos and search the internet for their names.
A couple of views of woodpeckers.
A Dove.
White Crowned Sparrow.
Two views of Inca Doves.
A collection of Goldfinches.
And one frustrated squirrel waiting for someone, anyone to land where he can get to them – fail.
I recommend to all – wander the world, you never know what you might come across.
2017 – Ohio State indoor track meet2017 – Ft Mitchell, Kentucky – Vent Haven Ventriloquist Puppet Museum2018 – Manhattan – Vacant City Hall Subway Station tour2018 – Sunset in Molokai2019 – Cleveland. One of the finest architectural wonders in the world – the Arcade2019 – Paris, Kentucky. Caliborne Farms. A multi million dollar stud just waiting for his next assignment.2019 – San Antonio de Areco, Argentina. A participant in the gaucho festival holding the Argentina flag.
2020 – Patagonia, Argentina. A real gaucho at work.
2020 – Delaware County, Ohio reservoir from a drone.2021 – Tucson. The Thunderbirds sail past the sun in the late afternoon.2022 – Far Eastern Oregon on Highway 3 on a rainy Memorial Day weekend.
The small mountain town of Patagonia was named when Welsh miners who had gone to Patagonia in Argentina migrated to the area to work in the silver mines of Arizona. They thought (correctly) that it resembled the area they came from in Argentina so they named it after their former home.
The entire area is well known as a birders paradise, with Patagonia Lake, a creek and a hummingbird sanctuary drawing people from all over the country. We stopped by for a brief visit, and was entertained by the birds, and the people.
In our travels across North America we have visited the Badlands in South Dakota, seen fossils in Arizona, and dinosaur bones in Colorado. In Southern Patagonia we had the chance to do this all in one place, La Leona.
And because it happens to be on a 30,000 acre ranch owned by one person, it is very restricted as to who can go there. We arranged a tour through one of the agencies in El Calafate, and were very pleased the next morning to see a mini van come to pick us up. Our group had 7 people, a driver and the guide!
The area is about 1.5 hours north of El Calafate – the scenery was fantastic along the way.
After a long drive up a bumpy dirt road, we got out and took off through the badlands.
It wasn’t long before we came upon the first dinosaur bone. They have been removing nearly full dinosaur skeletons from here for more than 20 years, so what is left are the ‘scraps’.
Still very impressive, they welcome you to touch them, hold them, and examine them – just leave them. They even gave us instructions on how to tell bone from rock – lick them. Or rather, lick your finger and press it against the object. If it sticks it is bone, otherwise it is rock.
There is even interesting vegetation throughout.
Our hike through the badlands continued with our guide Roci, until we reached the ‘petrified forest’. Roci was very knowledgeable and gave an excellent overview of what we were seeing, and how it got to be that way.
It is amazing how heavy small fragments of the petrified wood weighs.
We spent about 3 hours wandering around the badlands, finding plenty of petrified wood, and the occasional dinosaur bone.
What an amazing place, and fantastic day. To be able to see and touch these wonders of nature was great – and with such a small group at that.
If you thought Buenos Aires was far south, you haven’t seen anything yet. We made a 3 hour flight further south to El Calafate.
Which my phone said was here
We have come to far southern Patagonia in Argentina to see Los Glaciares National Park for a few days. It is home to the 3rd largest ice fields in the world (after Antarctica and Greenland).
To my amazement though the surroundings are desert, so the drive out felt more like Southern California than what I think of as glacial areas like Alaska.
With our mid day arrival, and an hour and a half drive to the park we only had time on this day to do the walkways.
We had our first glimpses on the drive into the park.
This was well worth the trip out for the afternoon, as the walkways are well built paths that take you to various levels very close to the snout of the glacier Perito Moreno.
The walkways was an excellent way to start our visit to the park, but there is much more to see in subsequent postings.
RDZ Photography 