Northern Sonora

Denis, Scott, and I set out early yesterday morning in a valiant effort to get up into the ’sky island’ ranges of northern Sonora, Mexico. We ended up having to make do with visits to several lowland sites between Naco and Nogales, some new, some familiar, and had a great day, in large part thanks to the rains that have made this landscape so unbelievably lush this year.

Among the many highlights were a total of 4 or 5 Gray Hawks, Ruddy Ground-Doves near Cananea, Broad-billed and Violet-crowned Hummingbirds at Terrenate, a Green Kingfisher (which I missed!) at Ojo de Agua, Thick-billed Kingbird at Terrenate, several Tropical Kingbirds at Imuris, and a Black-capped Gnatcatcher at Terrenate. Once again we were reminded how quickly a short visit to Sonora can get you into the heart of the range of these species, all “good” birds north of the border.

One minor disappointment was our failure to find any Five-striped Sparrows, though we stopped at a number of steep, heavily vegetated, ocotillo-crowned canyons between Cananea and Imuris.

But that bird’s congeners were abundant and conspicuous all day long. Botteri’s and Cassin’s Sparrows sang all over the grasslands south of Naco, and Rufous-winged Sparrow was common every time we descended into the mesquites from our mostly hillside route. And the one constant voice of the canyons we checked for five-stripes was the jangly jingle of Rufous-crowned Sparrow. Any day with four species of Aimophila, all of them in full song, is a great day!