The Grand Canyon as the sun went down. It’s just not possible to describe or photograph it!

After birding a couple of sites around the Flagstaff area – Kachina Village Wetlands and Upper Mary Lake, we headed for Tusayan – gateway to The Grand Canyon. After checking in to the Best Western, our most expensive and least impressive hotel so far, we went to check out the ‘big hole in the ground’. People had told us that it’s impossible to describe the experience of first seeing the canyon – it is simply beyond words. The sheer scale, dimensions, structures, colours and contours are truly staggering. We went back this evening in the hope of experiencing a glowing sun-set but unfortunately a cloudy horizon scuppered the plan. It was however a memorable experience nonetheless. On the bird front, we added a couple more duck species this morning at the excellent Village Wetlands before going on to the lake to add another grebe sp. and, perhaps most surprising of all, a diver – Common Loon or Great Northern Diver as we like to call it. We’ve now added over a hundred new birds for America since the beginning of this trip.

At the Kachina Village Wetlands this morning, plenty of lovely Yellow-headed Blackbirds

Catch of the Day – we watched this Osprey circled the lake several times before plunging in to the water, only to emerge with…. a goldfish!