Alamos Trip Day 5

[Michael Klein]

Here is day 5 of my trip to Alamos in southern Sonora, Mexico.  Thank you
all that have sent me responses about enjoying the trip.
Day 5 was not long but enjoyable to say the least.

Michael Klein
San Diego

Alamos day 5 - What a horrible night of sleep.  The excellent dinner at the
gourmet restaurant the night before made me the 'Home-town-buffet' for the
night.  The mosquitoes had more than their fill of me.  I counted no less
than 70 bites on my leg.  And that was just the left leg.  The right one was
just as bad.  It did not cool down in the evening, 80°F.  Well, the call of
the butterfly (I had no idea they could call) was urging me to get out.
Let's see what the day will bring and try to ignore the itching on my legs.

Claude and I decide to hike up the road to El Mirador, now that we knew how
to get there.  We started at about 7:30am.  There were clouds already over
the valley  and no breeze.  Uugh, is it muggy.  Well we walked past a few
homes that do little to no landscaping and therefore their flowers were
actually quite common and weedy.  This seemed to be preferred for lep
activity and we weren't disappointed.  Plenty of cloudless sulfurs (Phoebis
sennae marcellina), a couple of southern dogface (Zerene cesonia), one large
orange sulfur (Phoebis agarithe agarithe) and a few sleepy orange (Eurema
nicippe).  We did see a couple of elf (Microtia elva), and dorantes
long-tail (Urbanus dorantes dorantes).  Also a new butterfly for the trip
was Mazans scallopwing (Staphylus mazans). This one surprised me because I
did not think it got down this far.  When I was in the Lower Rio Grande
Valley last year they were fairly common but I just was not expecting one
here.  We got to the road crossing for the southern arroyo called Arroyo
Agua Escondida.  There was not much happing there.  There were a couple of
puddle parties with Boisduval's yellow (Eurema boisduvaliana), little yellow
(Eurema lisa lisa), dina yellow (Eurema dina westwoodi) and one southern
skipperling (Copaeodes minimus).  We figured it may be too early for
activity.  Or possibly the clouds curtailing activity.

Well, up the road to El Mirador.  Trust me this is not a lead into a Bing
Crosby, Bob Hope movie (I hope I am not aging myself too much).  We would
periodically stop at someone's house and look at the flowers.  Mostly
Boisduval's yellow (Eurema boisduvaliana), and little yellow (Eurema lisa
lisa).  When we turned a corner on the road we encountered a respectable
number of white-angled sulfurs (Anteos chlorinde nivifera), southern dogface
(Zerene cesonia), ceraunus blue (Hemiargus ceraunus gyas), Elada checkerspot
(Texola elada perse), tiny checkerspot (Dymasia dymas chara), elf (Microtia
elva), and dorantes long-tail (Urbanus dorantes dorantes).  We had a couple
of mimosa yellows (Eurema nise nelphe), dina yellows (Eurema dina
westwoodi), marine blues (Leptotes marina), gulf fritillarys (Agraulis
vanillae incarnata), bordered patches (Chlosyne lacinia crocale), queens
(Danaus gilippus strigosus), emorsa spurwings (Antigonus emorsa), and eufala
skippers (Lerodea eufala).  When we got to the top where a restaurant was
at, we encountered strong north to northwest winds blowing up to 30km.  The
winds were so wonderful, we really didn't want to come down off the hill and
go back into the muggy town.

The view was spectacular.  We took lots of pictures of the mountains
surrounding the town and pictures of the town, especially where we were
staying.  It was so comfortable up there I told Claude I was going to spend
the night up there and snuggle up to a few nightjars.  Besides they could
keep the mosquitoes off of me.  We were watching some black and turkey
vultures soaring on thermals when Claude noticed another bird within their
midst.  It was a hawk and after looking at it for quite sometime he
concluded we were looking at a white-tailed hawk.  We found out later from
David MacKay that this was not a very common bird in the area, especially
this time of the year.  Chalk up another new bird for me.

Claude went to the restaurant to talk with the folks setting things up.  He
likes to take advantage of any opportunity to use his Spanish.  He does
speak it very well and many locals complimented him on how good it was.  So,
he was at the restaurant and I sat further up the hill looking west out over
the valley and enjoying the breezes.  Even though the winds were strong
there were still a few butterflies that came up the hill and flew around up
there.  They did not appear to be hill-topping.  I suspected they were
enjoying the breezes like me.  Mostly white-angled sulfurs (Anteos chlorinde
nivifera), and tropical leafwings (Anaea aidea troglodyta) were flying up
there and I had two southern dogface (Zerene cesonia) skirt through and one
very fresh goatweed leafwing (Anaea andria) and gray cracker (Hamadryas
februa ferentina) landed on some granite boulders about 8 meters away from
me.  I tried to get close to them to photograph but when I got about 3
meters from them they flew off.  I wish I had a telephoto lens.  Anyway,
these guys looked very fresh.  I do not believe I saw any wear and tear on
them.

After about 45 minutes on the top of El Mirador, it was time to head back
down.  I was starting to get hungry and wanted some breakfast.  We headed
down and as soon as we got below the top, the winds ceased and it was again
muggy and hot.  By the time we got back down to the arroyo, the puddling
parties were in full swing.  Within a 20 meter section there were 12
parties.  The major makeup was a diversity of sulfurs and half of them had
southern dogfaces (Zerene cesonia).  A lot of them were spreading their
wings.  Since I did not have any pictures of a spreadwing dogface, I thought
it was a perfect opportunity to get some shots.  NOT!!!!  I wasn't able to
get closer than 3 meters again and PUFF a cloud of yellow.  It really is a
wonderful sight to see a puddling party of sulfurs dispersing.  It looks
like pollen being dispersed and being carried to its next resting spot.
Well Claude and tried for about 30 minutes to get a picture of a
spreadwinged dogface without any luck.  Oh that I wish I had a telephoto
lens.  Other butterflies and skippers now active within the arroyo were,
pipevine swallowtail (Battus philenor), marine blue (Leptotes marina), elf
(Microtia elva), queen (Danaus gilippus strigosus), empress leillia
(Asterocampa leillia cocles), dorantes long-tail (Urbanus dorantes
dorantes), brown long-tail (Urbanus pronce), common sootywing (Pholisora
catillus), orange skipperling (Copaeodes aurantiacus), and false
roadside-skipper (Repens florus).  We were also treated to a female
violet-crowned hummingbird  being curious as to what were doing.  She was
very friendly and perched on a mexican bird-of-paradise for quite awhile.

We got back to our room, showered and headed out for lunch by now.  Too late
for breakfast.  We had lunch at a small restaurant a block away from
Solipaso.  We first checked out a place we were told about called Cokies.
Folks said we should have a meal there because, "She has air conditioning."
We found her place.  IT was her home which she has a small part turned into
a restaurant.  She is a wonderful lady and was apologizing to us because she
was not going to be ready until dinner.  We thanked her and went to lunch as
I said near Solipaso with the intent to have dinner at Cokies.  Lunch was so
big that I was not hungry for dinner.  We did go there though for Tuesday
night dinner (I will share that in day 6).

When we got back to out room it was too hot to do anything.  I decided to
set out some very ripe fruit around the garden and see what would take
advantage of such excellent juicy nectar.  Well after 3 hours I got flesh
flies and bronze bottle flies.  No butterflies.  Took advantage of the
afternoon to catch up on some reading and watch the monsoon clouds build.
Rain possibly?

Well, rested the remainder of the day and got ready for Tuesday - The Sewage
Ponds



 
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