Artistic Desert Retreat VRBO Tucson, AZ 2016

We have had good success on a couple of previous vacations renting through VRBO,
so for this trip to Tucson we once again tapped into this vacation rental agency.

I found a home quite near the one we stayed at on our last visit to Tucson.

https://www.vrbo.com/267501

OK so the shot above is blurry... deal with it!

Given that we know the area from a previous visit,
we knew what to expect as far as location went but the
actual home one finds when one arrives to is always a surprise.

Luckily, as I said, we have done well with VRBO
and this rental through Scott McC met our expectations.
The house was as advertised and we were not disappointed. 

The yard itself was not as nice as our previous rental in Tucson.
We were, nevertheless, able to capture numerous pictures of the very rich desert environment.  In fact, the yard itself was actually quite overgrown with cactus.  What we thought were trails often ended in a wall of thorns.

Nevertheless the surroundings were quite spectacular. 
The Catalina mountains behind us afforded some beautiful sunrise views.

At sunset we moved to the front yard to bid the day goodnight
as the sun set behind the aptly named Twin Peaks,
part of the Tucson Mountains on the west side of town.

Coming from the east coast it was nice that the time difference allowed us to be up at sunrise and to get out to photograph the area birds as they were waking up.

  It helped that the owners put out a block of bird seed which attracted
a nice variety of birds, including a covey of resident Gambel’s Quails, and a plethora of very active house sparrows. 

The birds sure did like the cover of the mesquite tree (or was it an ironwood?).

Pictured (left) Verdin and Cactus Wren (right)

The many dead snags were popular with mourning doves.

The mourning doves were popular with the Cooper's Hawk.

The Cooper's Hawk was not popular with the three
great-horned owls that came to protect their territory.

House Finch top left ... Phainopepla bottom left ... Ladder-backed Woodpecker right

The owner said we might see javelina and coyotes in the yard. 
No javelin visited but one morning a coyote did walk through
the yard about 10 feet away from us before we spooked it.

No doubt he was looking for one of the many cottontail rabbits or mice that we saw.

All in all, Tuscon is a great place to visit and I wouldn't hesitate to rent from Paul again.

He was prompt with responses to my queries and even gave me
a discount on the cleaning fee because we left the house in tip-top shape.