If I Were Going...: A Quick Southwest Trip: Driving to Tucson and Salt River Canyon

Above Salt River Canyon

Our next stop was Tucson and Saguaro National Park, a five-hour drive if you book it, which we basically did. We just made a quick stop at the Salt River Canyon ...

Caty at Salt River Canyon

... which was ablaze with wildflowers ...

One of the many types on the mountain

The flowers were mainly up the sides of the mountain just before we got to the bridge over the Salt River, but they all but disappeared at the river overlook, so we had to backtrack to photograph them.

It looks landscaped

This is a beautiful drive; one of the few that I either wasn’t familiar with or had forgotten since I lived in Phoenix. I discovered it last time I drove south to Phoenix and was amazed that I hadn't been there before.

In many ways, the Salt River Canyon resembles a miniature Grand Canyon, but with a road to the bottom and back out again.

Salt River Canyon

Although we were in a hurry, we did take some time to walk down to the river and to drive back up the hill to photograph the flowers …

Gorgeous wildflowers

… and the bugs …

European Honeybee

… and the birds …

OK, so there were very few birds and I don't know what this is!

Interesting design

Oh, and I also couldn’t resist photographing the railings at the rest stop.

Designed by a plumber?

After a quick laugh at the railing design (and a stop in the restroom), we continued on our way back south again with just two more brief stops.

First, to snap some of the first saguaros we saw along our route, along with a lovely cholla …

The beginning of the Sonoran Desert

Photo: Caty Stevens

Then, just as we were approaching Tucson near the town of Mammoth, we saw the distinctive shape of a raptor tucked into a tree branch right by the road.

I stopped as quickly as I could (with fast-moving traffic behind me), but it was too hard to photograph across the road.

So, I turned around so that we could get closer. We pulled over and Caty snapped a few pix before it flew into a nearby tree.

I couldn't get a clean shot from the driver-side window (this is a common lament – cars have too many things sticking out to get clean shots from the opposite side and my long lens will not shoot through the windshield).

Then we got out of the car and looked around until we found it behind some very dense tree branches.

My pictures through the "sticky" tree

None of my pictures are great and it was tricky to see, but we did know that it was something new. It turned out to be a Gray Hawk!

Also called the Mexican Goshawk, the Gray Hawk is a smallish raptor found in open country and forest edges. A Buteo, it is related to Red-Shouldered Hawks, Swainson's Hawks and Red-Tailed Hawks, among others.

Gray Hawks feed mainly on lizards and snakes, but will also take small mammals, birds and frogs.

Gray Hawk range

They usually sit on an open high perch from which they swoop on their prey, but they will also hunt from a low glide.

The Gray Hawk's range is in Northern and Central America, from southern Arizona and Texas, through Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, to the northern part of Costa Rica.

A lifer for me and a bird that you can’t see many places in the U.S.

Awesome. I just wished I had captured it as it flew out of the tree.

We didn't have time to look for where it went, we had to get to Tucson so that we could visit our next National Park.