Alamos Trip Day 7

Michael Klein keps2 at flite-tours.com
Sun Oct 6 09:23:59 EDT 2002


Here is day 7 of my Alamos Trip

Michael Klein
San Diego

Alamos day 7 - I slept very well.  It did rain again last night for about
two and a half hours.  It was not a heavy rain but steady.  We had an early
breakfast and we were ready to take off at 6am when Claude and I were
entertained with moths on the side of the building as well as on David's
windshield.  We could have stayed there half an hour.  But we needed to get
going.  We headed west on the main road out of Alamos going towards Navajoa.
We stopped quickly to get a picture of the sign along the road noting the
gourmet restaurant at Adwana.  As Claude was getting back in the van we
heard a bird chirping.  David found it.  It was a blue-black grassquit.  Not
only was it new for me but David said it was uncommon in its season, and it
was early.  Well I got the feeling we were going to have a pretty
interesting day.  As we continued driving,  We were excited about seeing the
grassquit and I mentioned that I had not seen a five-striped sparrow yet.
David immediately turns off onto a side road called Cerro Prieto.  Drove up
a mountain side for about five minutes.  He stopped pulled out his sparrow
tape and began playing it.  Within one minute we had three five-striped
sparrows.  They came up to us to within about five meters.  You didn't need
binoculars.  They were so close, you could see all of the detail on their
breast and face to recognize they were five-stripes.  The tape also brought
two curious elegant trogans.  Well this is turning out to be a pretty good
day.

We got into Navajoa and turned south on the freeway.  After about forty-five
minutes We pulled off at a gas-mart to get some cool drinks and ice.  We
went about three kilometers and turn right off the freeway.  We were in a
coastal influenced desert scrub.  There were plenty of gila woodpeckers as
well as gilded flickers.  There were at least two dozen crested caracaras
along with Harris' hawks and turkey and black vultures.  We drove this road
for about twenty minutes and pulled into Coteco.  This is a preserve and is
monitored by Tucson Audubon.  We only walked through the arroyo but it was
loaded with butterflies.  Common were lyside sulfur (Kricogonia lyside),
white-angled sulfur (Anteos chlorinde nivifera), cloudless sulfur (Phoebis
sennae marcellina), tailed orange (Eurema proterpia), tiny checkerspot
(Dymasia dymas chara), elf (Microtia elva), empress leillia (Asterocampa
leillia cocles), dorantes long-tail (Urbanus dorantes dorantes), and eufala
skipper (Lerodea eufala).  Also there were Arizona metalmark (Calephelis
arizonensis sinaloensis), fatal metalmark (Calephelis nemesis nemesis),
American snout (Libytheana carinenta larvata), tropical buckeye (Junonia
genoveva nigrosuffusa), white peacock (Anartia jatrophae luteipicta), common
mestra (Mestra amymone), blackened bluewing (Myscelia cyanthe skinneri),
dingy purplewing (Eunica monima), queen (Danaus gilippus strigosus), soldier
(Danaus eresimus montezuma), black-spotted skipper (Chiomara mithrax),
emorsa spurwing (Antigonus emorsa), white checkered skipper (Pyrgus
albescens), tropical checkered skipper (Pyrgus oileus), desert checkered
skipper (Pyrgus philetas), and common sootywing (Pholisora catillus).  We
walked onto a side trail and came upon some wonderfully flowering trees.
Plenty of butterflies here also nectaring up in the flowers.  Most flowers
were eight to ten meters up so it was difficult to get the 'close-up.'
David asked me to look at one of the butterflies.  It was a metalmark about
Lasaia  size.  In fact it was grayish from what little I could see on the
ventral, dark on the dorsal (could net get the exact color) but it had a
very unique feature.  Both the forewings and hindwings on the dorsal surface
had large white patches.  The patches covered from about center wing towards
the outer edge.  The only characteristic that made me stay with metalmark
was the antennae out in front of its head versus at right angles.  Oh, I
wish I had a telephoto lens!  I could not photograph it or even net it.  So,
I told David I would check my references when I get home.  Well, no luck.  I
am completely stumped on this guy.  Any of you tropical metalmark experts
able to even give a clue?

We finished at Coteco and headed back to the main freeway.  We turned south
for about fifteen minutes and again turned right onto a dirt road.  We took
this for about twenty minutes and came to the estuary called Agiabampo /
Bamocha.  WOW!!!  So this is what southern California estuaries are suppose
to look like.  We got out of the van, that was a mistake, and proceeded to
melt.  Claude said, "Oh, it's the Salton Sea."  It was about 110°F with at
least 100% humidity.  But the bird life was outstanding.  There were grass
huts here which are used as sleeping quarters in the winter months for
exchange students learning about nature.  David showed us the kitchen hut
and we were immediately greeted by four Mexican long-nose bats.  What
beautiful creatures.  Also inside the huts on the walls were plenty of black
witch moths (Ascalapha odorata).  Most of them were females because they had
the bands but they were blueish not pinkish.  There was very little in the
way of butterflies here.  I believe the heat was too much for them.  But I
did have a few western pygmy blues (Brephidium exilis), and a couple of
great southern whites (Ascia monuste monuste).  The whites were patrolling
along the water's edge and would fly over the water as I neared them.  Every
once in a while they would alight onto some shrub and maneuver down into the
plant.  Apparently trying to avoid the heat.  I decided to walk along the
water's edge to do some bird watching.  I had great looks at an osprey
chowing down on his lunch.  When David saw that he said that we should have
some lunch also.  I stayed out in the heat for a bit just to look at some
birds and enjoy this beautiful estuary.  For some reason the heat was not
bothering me.  I guess when you get so engrossed into something you forget
everything around you, including the elements.  By the time I got to some
shaded area where Claude and David were resting, lunch was starting to get
real warm.  After eating some, we walked around the grounds.  We got to see
a male broad-billed hummingbird use his bill to pierce the fruit of the
pipe-organ cactus.  From there he began getting the juice from out of it.
David said this was a new experience for him.  Other great birds here were
magnificent frigatebird, blue-footed booby, mangrove swallow (lots),
Wilson's plovers, white ibis with young, little blue heron, reddish egret,
and solitary sandpiper.  We also got to see two actively hunting green
kingfishers.

Well the heat was too much so David said we were going to slowly meander
back to Alamos.  Well I was an expert at meandering, comes with age.  We
heading out and looked at some of the old deserted agricultural fields.  By
the way, we were less than five kilometers from the border to the state of
Sinaloa.  So we were fairly far south.  We came to an interesting filed with
some American kestrels.  Up popped an eastern meadowlark onto a fence post
not even three meters from us.  The interesting thing about this guy was
that it was a fledgling.  David knew that they showed up in the winter but
he did not know of any records of nesting meadowlarks for this area.  Now
that it is a month later, I received an email from David.  He checked with
his sources and found out that this is a first record for the state.  Not
bad.

We headed back to Navajoa and took the road to Alamos.  It was about 3pm by
now and cooler now that we were away from the coast.  About ten kilometers
from Alamos we pulled off onto the side of the road.  David had one last sot
for us to hike.  Guess what, another arroyo.  This one was called Arroyo
Marino.  What an impressive 'jungle.'  We donned our backpacks and hiked
into the dense tall grassy meadow.  We immediately had some very interesting
birds.  Besides the tropical kingbirds, inca doves, white-tipped doves, and
ferruginous pygmy owls, we came upon greater pewee, western wood-pewee, gray
flycatcher, Pacific-slope flycatcher, vermillion flycatcher, dusky-capped
flycatcher, Nutting's flycatcher, sulfur-bellied flycatcher, thick-billed
kingbird, western kingbird, yellow-green vireo, black-throated magpie jay,
and lots of varied buntings. Since it was getting later in the day, the
butterfly activity was slowing down, but we still had a few puddling parties
as well as a great granite wall for crackers.  We were not disappointed
there.  Claude got about four photos of gray cracker (still looking at them
for quality for ID purposes) and I had a satyr that Andrew Warren ID for me
as Cissia undina.  He also said it Cissia has been reported as Vareuptychia
similes.  As we headed back out of the arroyo we came back to a large puddle
party.  Must have been over one hundred sulfurs.  David didn't see them
right away and so he flushed them off the ground.  If it wasn't getting too
dark, it would have made a great photo of David being surrounded by
fluttering gold.  Well this was a great way to end an absolutely fabulous
day.

One more day to report.  It will be an arroyo south of Alamos connecting to
the trail that goes to the top of Mount Alamos.



 
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