Gilbert, AZ - The Riparian Preserve At Water Ranch

The Riparian Preserve is an area set aside as a bird sanctuary.  There are many ponds and some of them were dry or just partially filled today.  Well, it is June in the desert so we should expect some dryness.  Paula wanted to try out her new camera, so we met at 5AM to be able to drive to the park for the 5:18 am dawn opening.  We were not the first ones in the parking lot and saw about ten cars with photographers. We were with the right crowd.

Summer in the desert and we still have some birds. Paula knows that names of a lot of the birds and I will need to ask her to help with an identification.  For now, enjoy the pictures.

A Great Blue Heron.  A group standing behind us mentioned that this bird was hunting. It stands in the water very still and its legs look like sticks, and the other sticks in the water. Sneaky!

A Canadian Goose
The water in this little pond was shallow and the bird walked most of the way from the other side.

I imagine that this entire pond area is filled in the winter time.

This was a fun photo. You can see the reflection and the shadow.

Each pond area seemed to be different.  Throughout the park the streams and little waterfalls helped to fill the ponds.  This pond area is filled with vegetation, now brown for the summer.

Wild flowers were still in bloom and as beautiful as ever.  Some of the trees have produced seeds and the pods are drying.

Tall daisys were everywhere.

Click on this photo to enlarge it and see the delicate purple flowers.

I like the color red, so this flower is my favorite. I have this plant in my front yard.

We left the park around 8AM with a full Saturday ahead of us.  It was nice to be outside early in the morning when the weather was at a cool 80 degrees and the sun was "gentle".  Good luck to Paula in the use of her new awesome camera. She bought a Panasonic Lumix Point and Shoot and it is an amazing camera.  She is off on a trip to the Canadian wilderness. Perhaps I will be able to convince her to post here as a guest blogger so that we can see photos from her adventure.