We're lucky to have in the middle of the Phoenix metropolitan sprawl a world-class desert plant museum and education center. The Desert Botanical Garden's collections of cacti, succulents, trees and plants from all the globe's arid regions are arranged in a multitude of beautiful landscapes, habitats and gardens. Unsurprisingly, the desert flora attracts a multitude of critters that include many birds, both resident and migratory.
But the park of course makes money and needs to attract the people that spend it. So the garden also has restaurants, shops, art galleries and regular events like the holiday season's Las Noces de las Luminarias when luminaria bags, strings of lights and live bands overtake the peace and calm you might associate with the grounds. And over at least the last ten years there have been frequent but temporary art installations that have placed contemporary sculptures and lights throughout the desert landscape.
As a wildlife and nature lover, I'm sometimes concerned that the invasion of the garden space by mankind and his noisy ideas for entertainment might be too much competition for the animals that call the park home. So it was with some degree of trepidation that I visited the park the morning following a night of the Luminarias and in the middle of the latest art showing by Cracking Art out of Milan.
It certainly felt like the first day of winter was just a day away as the thermometer was barely in the forties. At the garden's 8am opening the sun was just starting to creep above the treetops giving some hope that it would soon start warming my hatless ears and gloveless hands. But more importantly I was reassured by the bird song and noise as I locked my car and found my way to the ticket window.
Of course there were signs of the previous night's event, with pathways lined by plastic luminaria bags - they're re-usable versus traditional paper - and their burned-down candles. Makeshift bandstands were empty except for signs with the names of the entertainers. And a colorful array of giant plastic frogs and meerkats from Cracking Art greeted me before I even had to pay a dime.
But on this chilly, quiet morning I wasn't disappointed in my visit's true purpose: to see the birdlife the Desert Botanical Garden is famous for. Cactus wrens clucked and rasped to each other near the first bridge into the garden, hummingbirds flitted amongst blooms in the wildflower exhibit, and woodpeckers squawked from the dizzying heights of saguaro cacti in the Sonoran Desert zone. And it seemed at least one verdin was peeping from every other one of the hundreds of palo verde trees in the park.
In other words, it was just another day in the garden. Sure humankind's footprint and handiwork is present in every corner of the park, especially during the busy holiday and tourist seasons. But the vast collection of flora is safeguarded, thriving beyond the pathways even while its under the bright spotlight of visitors. As long as the plantlife blooms, it seems the wildlife does too right alongside it.
But the park of course makes money and needs to attract the people that spend it. So the garden also has restaurants, shops, art galleries and regular events like the holiday season's Las Noces de las Luminarias when luminaria bags, strings of lights and live bands overtake the peace and calm you might associate with the grounds. And over at least the last ten years there have been frequent but temporary art installations that have placed contemporary sculptures and lights throughout the desert landscape.
As a wildlife and nature lover, I'm sometimes concerned that the invasion of the garden space by mankind and his noisy ideas for entertainment might be too much competition for the animals that call the park home. So it was with some degree of trepidation that I visited the park the morning following a night of the Luminarias and in the middle of the latest art showing by Cracking Art out of Milan.
It certainly felt like the first day of winter was just a day away as the thermometer was barely in the forties. At the garden's 8am opening the sun was just starting to creep above the treetops giving some hope that it would soon start warming my hatless ears and gloveless hands. But more importantly I was reassured by the bird song and noise as I locked my car and found my way to the ticket window.
Of course there were signs of the previous night's event, with pathways lined by plastic luminaria bags - they're re-usable versus traditional paper - and their burned-down candles. Makeshift bandstands were empty except for signs with the names of the entertainers. And a colorful array of giant plastic frogs and meerkats from Cracking Art greeted me before I even had to pay a dime.
But on this chilly, quiet morning I wasn't disappointed in my visit's true purpose: to see the birdlife the Desert Botanical Garden is famous for. Cactus wrens clucked and rasped to each other near the first bridge into the garden, hummingbirds flitted amongst blooms in the wildflower exhibit, and woodpeckers squawked from the dizzying heights of saguaro cacti in the Sonoran Desert zone. And it seemed at least one verdin was peeping from every other one of the hundreds of palo verde trees in the park.
In other words, it was just another day in the garden. Sure humankind's footprint and handiwork is present in every corner of the park, especially during the busy holiday and tourist seasons. But the vast collection of flora is safeguarded, thriving beyond the pathways even while its under the bright spotlight of visitors. As long as the plantlife blooms, it seems the wildlife does too right alongside it.
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| Verdin. |
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| Cactus wren. |
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| Male gilded flicker. |
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| Female gilded flicker. |
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| Gila woodpecker. |
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| Female hummingbird, most likely Anna's. |
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| Cracking Art's over-sized plastic meerkats at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. |
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