Alamos Trip Day 2

[Michael Klein]

Here is my second day of exploring the region at Alamos in southern Sonora:

Alamos day 2 - Slept fairly well with fans blowing on me and not to many
mosquito bites (30).  But woke up with the courtyard birds singing, tropical
kingbirds, broad-billed hummingbird, house finches, and canyon wrens, great
kiskadee, hooded oriole, and barn swallow.  Temperature was 78°F at 6am.

Lots to do today.  We decided to check out an arroyo in the southern end of
town and find the road that takes you to a hilltop called El Mirador.  Got
to the arroyo at about 7:45am.  Very busy with all kinds of insects.
Sulfurs were everywhere and many species, southern dogface (Zerene cesonia),
cloudless sulfur (Phoebis sennae marcellina), little yellow (Eurema lisa
lisa), mimosa yellow (Eurema nise nelphe), sleepy orange (Eurema nicippe),
and dina yellow (Eurema dina westwoodi).  Elf (Microtia elva) was common as
well as ceraunus blue (Hemiargus ceraunus gyas).  New butterflies for me in
the arroyo included Mexican fritillary (Euptoieta hegesia hoffmanni), emorsa
spurwing (Antigonus emorsa), brown long-tail (Urbanus pronce), and blackened
bluewing (Myscelia cyanthe skinneri).  There were also some impressive 3
inch rusty colored lubber grasshoppers on the stems of many of the plants.
We could never find the road to get to El Mirador.  We kept interpreting the
map incorrectly and whenever we ask folks along the arroyo about the access
road they kept telling us we were in the correct area.  We found out a
couple of days later that we were about 3 blocks away.

By this time it was 9:30 and I was getting hungry.  So, we went back to the
Villa, changed and had breakfast at Los Toseros, a very fancy hotel.  On the
way back to the Villa there were a couple of tropical leafwings (Anaea aidea
troglodyta) and one goatweed leafwing (Anaea andria) [we have the specimen]
on the walls of the buildings.  The other interesting butterfly I saw flying
throughout the streets were a couple of giant whites (Ganyra josephina
josepha).  One landed on the road by a curb within the shade and spread its
wings.  After I saw that I knew it was giant white.  After a nice relaxing
breakfast we went to see David and Jen to see if they had heard from anyone
for the SEABA group yet.  They had not so we walked around town.  We needed
to get to the Banco to change some of my traveler's checks into pesos.  The
bank manager was very nice.  Instead of me having to stand in line (it was
long) the manager transacted everything for us at his desk.  By the way,
they have an ATM there and you can use your bank card and get pesos whenever
you need to.  You will be charged whatever fees your bank would charge for
the transaction and then of course the amount depending on the day's
exchange rate.  So here we are pesoed up.  We needed to go to the market to
get some fruit.  As most of you know, chilled fruit tastes so good on hot
muggy days.  We also needed to got to the store to get some bottled water
and a bag of ice.  On the way to the market on the wall of one of the
buildings was this awesome owlfly.  It is a Neuropteran and my friend David
Faulkner thinks it is in the genus Ululodes.  It was a female because when I
whipped my camera around to photograph it, she elevated her abdomen in an
offering posture.  Some of the residents were curious as to what I was doing
and when Claude interpreted to them about what she was doing they chuckled.

Well by this time it was approaching noon and getting quite uncomfortable.
We got back to the Villa and the temperature in the courtyard was 98°F and I
am sure the humidity was just as high.  A quick cool shower and I laid down
for about 1 1/2 hours.

At about 1:30pm we decided to check out the arroyos at the north end of
town.  Since the south arroyo called Arroyo Agua Escondida was so good
hopefully the north one would be.  There are 2 arroyos there and the first
one is devoid of vegetation.  So another block to the second which is called
Arroyo El Barranco.  Much better but wow was it hot.  I forgot to mention,
because of my professional job as a consulting biologist, I never go in the
field unless I where long pants and a long-sleeved shirt.  Well it
definitely heated my body up.  On the positive side was that monsoon clouds
were building to the east and winds at about 3pm started coming from the
east.  The outlook looked positive for and afternoon shower.  Since it had
not rained there in over 12 days, anything would be appreciated.  Claude and
I walked west through the arroyo.  There was a tall stone wall on the south
side of the arroyo and vegetation along the wall as well as some good
vegetation on the north side which was exposed to the sun.  Well all of our
butterflies were in the shaded vegetation deep within it avoiding the
afternoon heat.  As we walked past them it flushed them out and they
actually appeared pissed at us.  Well in this arroyo not only had many elf
(Microtia elva) but we got tiny (Dymasia dymas chara) and elada checkerspots
(Texola elada perse).  Also we had fatal metalmark (Calephelis nemesis
nemesis) and Arizona metalmark (Calephelis arizonensis).  I guess it is
Arizona.  Scott's book notes them as Rawson's and makes arizonensis a
subspecies.  He also notes in his text of possible sinaloensis as a
subspecies.  Based on what pictures I have taken this does not look too
similar to arizonensis and is possibly sinaloensis.  There were a number of
little yellows (Eurema lisa lisa) and 2 tailed oranges (Eurema proterpia).

Well I had enough.  I was drenched with sweat and could not cool down.  We
called it quits and headed back.  We were going to stop at a bakery to get
some breads and a store to get some Gatorade.  But not before we saw a new
bird for us both.  Perched on the top of a Mexican bird-of-paradise was a
male plain-capped starthroat hummingbird.  He was not even 10 feet away from
us and he perched there for a couple of minutes.  It did not matter how
uncomfortable I was, this was well worth it.  We got our breads and drink
and sat at a table at the town's central park.  The clouds were building and
getting pretty windy.

About 4:30 we felt it was time to head back to the Villa to shower and get
ready to meet the folks from SEABA for the weekend as well as have dinner at
Solipaso.  By the time we got back to the Villa you just knew it was going
to rain.  It did and it was a gully washer.  Now you have to appreciate that
those of us from southern California do not have the opportunity to see
these too often.  So, here is this downpour (David MacKay tells me that 1
1/2 inches fell in 45 minutes) and Claude and I are acting like little kids
running and jumping in the puddles.  Thank goodness there was no one there
to photograph us.  We looked pretty silly.  The rains dropped the
temperature from 100°F to 77°F in that short period of time.

Off to dinner at Solipaso to meet everyone.  There were a total of 13 of us
for the weekend.  After missing an opportunity in March, I finally met Fred
Heath.  Those who do not know Fred, he is a very good and well respected
lepidopterist in the southern California region.  We had a great diversity
of professional folks this weekend and I knew I was going to learn a lot
from them.  Dinner was excellent.  Jen is a superb cook and here selection
of meals all weekend were light and filling, which fit in well with the hot
and muggy conditions.

Off to bed to get ready for the first big day with SEABA.


 
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