I have started another 3-month photographic road trip heading towards the Rocky Mountains and Yellowstone National Park. During my last couple of months in Tucson I took a few good wildlife photos at Whitewater Draw, southeast of Tucson and Sweetwater, northwest of Tucson – included below are photos of Sandhill Cranes, Ruddy Duck, a hard to spot Sora, Bobcat and Coopers Hawk.

My first stop of the trip was Prescott, a longtime favorite where I stayed again at the St Michael’s Hotel, a historic 4 story brick landmark on the corner of Whisky Row and Gurley Street. I spent late afternoons in Jersey Lilly’s bar, a 1900s former place-of-ill-repute, on its large balcony overlooking the Courthouse Square.  Dinner was spent twice in the Palace on Whiskey Row, a 19^th century historic landmark considered one of the 10 greatest historic bars in the country – prior to the great 1900 fire it hosted the Earp brothers, Doc Holiday and Big-nose Kate.

Mornings I spent walking through Watson Riparian Reserve, trying (usually unsuccessfully) to get close shots of the rare and always-hiding Wood Ducks, and then continueing around Watson Lake which is often crowded with a number of species of ducks, cormorants and other birds. The photos below include the Wood Ducks, Ring-necked Ducks, an Anna’s Hummingbird and both the Double-crested Cormorant and much less common Neotropic Cormorant.

From Prescott I will drive up through Holbrook and the Petrified Forest National Park and on to Cortez, Colorado in the 4-Corners area. Later. Dave