I went into the office 2-3 times the first week I was retired, just to complete a few relatively minor things. But things were great: it was just Marie and I together, with no work to interfere with our activities! We did get out to wander around over the first few weeks, in part to look up some very interesting bird sightings. Almost immediately was the presence of a Great Gray Owl, typically a northern Ontario species which I had seen on rare occasions, but this one was in nearby Essex County. It got lots of attention for the couple of days it was present. In spite of the numerous observers, it was quite cooperative and didn't move around much. No doubt being a northerner, it wasn't used to people.
A few White-winged Crossbills, another northern species, showed up at Rondeau and I managed to get a few photos like this, coming to a spruce tree right along the road:
A more western species, Mountain Bluebird, showed up in southeastern Lambton County, and fortunately in a hedgerow right along the quiet road.
The winter was getting off to a great start with these birds! And with all the time now available to us, we had an interest in traveling a bit. Arizona had always appealed to us, and we had been for relatively short trips on several occasions since the early 1980s. Marie did a bit of searching, and found a place totally surrounded by the Sonoran Desert a bit south of Tucson that we could rent for a two week period! Thank-you Marie! She had been having some ongoing counseling sessions regarding her childhood abuse, but took a break for our travels. So we took a month including a meandering trip there and back, but the two weeks at this place was marvelous. Lots of cactus, and birds, as the property consisted of about 10 acres, and was surrounded on all four sides by even more desert. Many of these photos that follow were taken right on the property. I took several hundred photos altogether, but selected these to highlight our visit.
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| Curve-billed Thrasher |
Gambel's Quail were a highlight to see, and a pair of them showed up at the feeding station right outside the back door, on a regular basis.
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| Gambel's Quail male |
The day we had to pack up and leave, a female with about 10 recently hatched youngsters showed up at the feeding area, presumably to wish us bon voyage.
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| Gila Woodpecker |
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| Pink-flowered Hedgehog |
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| Pyrrhuloxia |
No question that the Saguaro Cactus were a sight to see, and made some great sunset photo opportunities.
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| Saguaro National Park scene |
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| Sonoran Desert sunset |
On the return, we stopped by Konza Prairie, a large tallgrass prairie site owned by Kansas State University near Manhattan, Kansas. It was in late April, and you can see some smoke on the horizon from some prescribed burns that are typical of prairie habitat in the spring. Kansas State University had bid on the 1992 North American Prairie Conference at the same time we bid on it to be held in Windsor, which I mentioned in an earlier post. Windsor won the 1992 bid, and KSU got the 1994 conference, which I attended.
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| Along a Konza Prairie trail in April |
A bit later in the spring, I had to decide where a bench dedicated to my birding was to be placed. It was during the compilation of the St. Clair NWA Christmas Bird Count, which I had been the coordinator for over about a 35 year period, that in celebration of my various contributions to bird counts, both the first and second breeding bird atlas, and other things, that some fellow birders got together to arrange for this bench in my honour at my retirement. I selected a place along the Spicebush Trail, and towards the end of the year when my sister from BC was visiting, she took this photo of Marie and I. Thank-you Patricia!
On another topic, I had often been intrigued by waterfalls, especially since they were so different than the flatlands of southwestern Ontario I lived in. So a bit of exploring various waterfalls was something I pursued a bit more in my retirement. Here are a few of my favourites that I took over the years. The first two are Rock Glen, in Lambton County.
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| Rock Glen in winter |
Next is a panoramic mix featuring Niagara Falls and the American Falls.
Next is Hoggs Falls, just off the Bruce Trail, north of Flesherton
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| Brooks Falls, north of Huntsville |
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| Bridal Veil Falls, Manitoulin |
So that includes some of the highlights of my first year of retirement, and these have been very fun to share. There are lots more activities to come in the decade or so following retirement, as well as some increasing and challenging things that Marie, and I, were having to deal with regarding her childhood abuse. Those challenges will be a lot more difficult to deal with in this blog. I have myriad ideas, and am constantly asking God for wisdom in how best to portray them. Some of the things are exactly the reason I felt that this blog was important. But there are some things that are too sensitive and I probably won't be able to include unless He gives me some really special way of doing it.
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