Birding and other Beauty

Following Christmas, and before New Year’s, we snuck in a few birding trips. Sweetwater Wetlands are fairly close to us, and has a pretty good assortment of beautiful birds.

This first one, a Ruby-throated Hummingbird, was spotted on a walk around our park. He was sitting contentedly on a bush, and so close I could get a picture with the iPhone… That’s very close!

This is Sweetwater… With the sun going down we figured it would be a great time for birding.

As the sun was setting, the moon was rising in the east.

We saw very few birds this trip, but we did have one exciting sighting… a Bobcat! Cherryl spotted him silently walking alongside the path, quite a ways ahead of us. With the low light and the iPhone at max telephoto, the picture has all the quality of a Bigfoot or Loch Ness Monster photo, but I’m putting it up anyway, because it was so fun!

If you’ve been reading this blog lately, you know I’m volunteering at the Tucson Auto Museum. And loving it! Every week I’ve put up a few pictures of my “Car of the Week” and this week it’s a 1955 Cadillac Limousine. Specifically a Model 75 Series Custom Limo, bodied by Derham. Only two of these elegant Derham bodied Cadillacs were built, and both were purchased new by John D. Rockefeller. One was kept at their Long Island retreat, and the other was kept in New York City. The car has a powered glass partition between driver and passengers. It has all the power and luxury features one could imagine in 1955.

The deep blue metallic finish looks black at first, but then you see the awesome depth of color… beautiful. The top is black leather.

Get a load of that outrageous grille!

The driver’s compartment is upholstered in gray leather; the rear in leather trimmed gray broadcloth. The cloth is supposed to be cooler in summer and warmer in winter.

The little scoops at the back roofline were for air conditioning units, usually mounted in the trunk in those days. I think the fake vent just behind the back door inspired some of the styling of the Tatra. [You can compare them a bit here.] Engine exhausts through the rear bumpers, and gas filling is done behind the taillight. And selfies are taken most anywhere on the body, but behind the Chrome Cadillac signature is best.

Derham proudly put their signature on the hood. They were a proud custom body builder, having made elegant creations since the early 1900’s, and delivering cars to a wide range of affluent customers, including Joseph Stalin, Pope Pius XII, King Farouk, President Eisenhower, Gary Cooper and far more.