Alamos, Sonora Mexico Trip Day 3

[Michael Klein]

Here is day 3 on my Alamos Trip.  Thanks for all of your comments.  I will
try to get Day 4 out tomorrow since I will be in Ventura County Monday thru
Wednesday doing some bird surveys.

Michael Klein
San Diego

Alamos day 3 - Breakfast was ready for us at 6am and were heading out to at
7am to Arroyo Aduana, which is about 10 minutes west of town.  Morning
temperature was 77°F.  What an impressive arroyo.  What an impressive amount
of humidity.  Thankfully it was still early and therefore not very hot.
Didn't see many butterflies at first, so we took the opportunity to view
birds.  Good looks at red-billed pigeon.  I also got social flycatcher and
black-throated magpie jays.  There are some magpie jays in San Diego but
they are released birds and therefore not officially a countable bird.  But
down here, I can count them.  A male elegant trogon flew to an exposed
branch so all of us had pretty good looks at him.  After walking afor about
30 minutes we started seeing more leps.  Mostly creaunus blues (Hemiargus
ceraunus gyas) and tropical leafwings (Anaea aidea troglodyta).  We then
came to a small puddle area and it was loaded with butterflies.  Great looks
and a diverse group of longtails, including zilpa long-tail (Chioides zilpa
namba), long-tailed skipper (Urbanus proteus), and dorantes long-tail
(Urbanus dorantes dorantes).  Also saw acacia skipper (Cogia hippalus
hippalus), and Texas powdered skipper (Systasea pulverulenta).  A few
minutes later we had a gray cracker (Hamadryas februa ferentina) fly past
us.  But it did not land for anyone to really get good looks at it.

We moved through a road that was not very busy with butterflies.
Periodically we did see cloudless sulfur (Phoebis sennae marcellina) and an
occasional orange-barred sulfur (Phoebis philea).  Some of us were seeing
what appeared to be white-angled sulfur (Anteos chlorinde nivifera) but it
was too far away.  Although large enough to be one.

We had walked about a mile into the arroyo so David got the van, picked us
up and took us further into it.  We stopped at a very good area due to the
rains from the evening before.  We were not disappointed.  A giant
swallowtail (Heraclides cresphontes) flew past very quickly and folks got to
looking at some other butterflies.  I got curious (Oh, oh the Mark Walker
fever was coming again) and decided to explore the rocky arroyo.  I did not
even get 20 feet when I saw a small butterfly puddling.  I got real close
and thought "well it looks like a satyr because it has a small eyespot on
the ventral HW. No, it has bi-color antennae.  It has to be a Nymphalid."  I
ask for Priscilla Brodkin to come over.  She looked at it and did not know.
Hank came over and pulled out a book.  The whole time this guy was content
not to move.  Many of us got pictures. Hank and Fred finally agreed it was a
dingy purplewing (Eunica monima).  Well a new one for me again.  After
plenty of Kodak moments the group sort of split.  Some went west up the
arroyo and others went south.  We found a great puddling party of
Boisduval's yellows (Eurema boisduvaliana), which again made for some great
photos.  I had a fairly large funereal duskywing (Erynnis funeralis) fly
past me.  Hank came over and confirmed it for the overall group list.  I
continued to explore west into the arroyo.  The fever was starting to get to
me, oh maybe it was the heat.  By now it was 10am and it seemed that ever
day in Alamos 10am was the time the oven was turned up.  It was very muggy
and about 93°F.  I know some of you think I was whimping.  Hey, I am from
San Diego where coastally it does not get very hot.  There was no breeze at
all.  So here we are in an arroyo where it rained the evening before, 93°,
near 100% humidity and no breeze.  Trust me it was uncomfortable.  But,
seeing new and interesting butterflies made it all worth it.  A few of us
saw a small skipper fly onto some rip rap.  It was fairly small and a very
light tanish.  We got everyone's attention and after Fred and Hank looked at
their booklets came to the conclusion it was a sandy skipper (Zopyrion
sandace). Chalk up another new one.  Again, this one was fairly cooperative
for photographing.  Other butterflies seen in the arroyo were tiny
checkerspot (Dymasia dymas chara), elf (Microtia elva), dainty sulfur
(Nathalis iole), and empress leillia (Asterocampa leillia cocles).  Some of
the other skippers were common sootywing (Pholisora catillus), emorsa
spurwing (Antigonus emorsa), and white checkered skipper (Pyrgus albescens).

By this point I was seriously too hot to continue to be exposed to the
intense sun.  I went back to the van and waited for the others.  While there
I great looks at queens (Danaus gilippus strigosus), soldiers (Danaus
eresimus Montezuma), white-patched skipper (Chiomara georgina georgina), and
an eufala skipper (Lerodea eufala).  I even had a fifth instar of a
white-lined sphinx moth (Hyles lineata).

We grouped back up and went into the town of Aduana.  Aduana is a quaint
small town.  As most town in this area, activities are centered around the
local church.  Here is no different.  Their church is very old, over 300
years, and has many wonderful things within it and around it.  Just outside
is a very large fig tree which has a canopy of over 60 feet.  Some folks
went in to be tourist and say a few prayers (hopefully it was for relief of
the heat).  As the group got back together most went down toward the arroyo
again.  Priscilla and I stayed at the van.  I really needed to cool down.
But before most left for the arroyo, we were greeted by a rather worn ruddy
daggerwing (Marpesia petreus).  At least for my entire trip this time, it
was the only time I saw one.  Well the main group as I said went down
towards the arroyo.  There was a stone wall down by there and reports came
back of 3 species of crackers red (Hamadryas amphinome) as a fly by, gray
(Hamadryas glauconome grisea) and black-patched (Hamadryas atlantis lelaps).
There were also some blackened bluewings (Myscelia cyanthe skinneri).  So I
missed some pretty good butts.  I guess I figure health has bit more
priority.  Besides I wanted to make the afternoon trip.

By now it was 12:30pm and most of us were pretty hungry.  We headed back to
Alamos, had a quick wash up and had another excellent lunch.  Having
recharged our bodies, we made plans for the afternoon trip to make our way
to the top of a mountain where a microwave tower was located.  The area was
called La Luna.  Very dense deciduous thorn scrub forest.  When we got off
the main road, we had only traveled a bit and we had a lesser roadrunner
cross the road.  First for just about everyone onboard.  We headed a bit
further, parked the van walked the road.  A few puddling parties with mostly
sulfurs.  We had the pleasure of seeing a pair of dung beetles
(Scarabaeidae) rolling some fresh cow pie.  Clouds were beginning to build
to the north and east of us as well as the wind picking up.  Hum, maybe more
monsoon rain.  As we continued along the road, we were seeing the same
butterflies and skippers we had seen earlier in the day, cloudless sulfur
(Phoebis sennae marcellina), Boisduval's yellow (Eurema boisduvaliana),
sleepy orange (Eurema nicippe), elf (Microtia elva), tropical leafwing
(Anaea aidea troglodyta), dorantes long-tail (Urbanus dorantes dorantes),
white checkered skipper (Pyrgus albescens), and even a couple of desert
checkered skippers (Pyrgus philetas).  We came to a small skipper that
initially someone thought was a dun skipper (Euphyes vestris).  I was asked
and I felt it didn't have the correct coloring of yellowish green from the
back of the head into the thorax.  Well, it became another great Kodak
moment.  This guy was very cooperative.  Well cooperative until Claude got
on his stomach to get a photo and it then decided to move.  It felt much
more at rest on his head.  Now I know Claude is talented, especially with
birds and bird calls.  But his talents reached their limits with being able
to photograph a skipper on his head.  We all had a chuckle because he tried
to get it to move off him and to a spot back on the ground.  After a couple
of minutes Claude got up and it flew back to its original spot.  Well,
Claude got back on his stomach to photograph and the skipper flew back onto
his head.  Smart little guy.  I was laughing too much to stay watch this
comedy so I moved on.  By the way, some thought it was Brock's road-side
skipper (Amblyscirtes brocki).  It ended up being false road-side skipper
(Repens florus).

As we continued up the road I found a regal horned lizard (Phrynosoma
solare).  I put him in my hand and allowed folks to get pictures.  What an
absolutely beautiful creature.  A couple of minutes later I found a giant
whiptail lizard (Cnemidophorus tigris maximus).  He moved quickly across the
road but stayed within some thin vegetation just off the road for folks to
see.  I guess this was my day to be a herps magnet (not herpes).