Sonora

There is much to admire in Steve Howell’s Mexico bfg, not least the irrefutable logic with which he urges birders to pass by appealing areas when the desired birds are much more easily seen farther south (or west or east…). I’ve never been able to exercise that sort of restraint, and so Saturday, November 8, [...]

Sonora must be a leper’s paradise, and even we hardbitten birders found it difficult at times to look away from the beauty and diversity of butterflies and moths we saw in the Sierra Madre this past weekend. I even took pictures of a few, which will have to keep appetites whetted until I finish the [...]

Mary and Tim and I had a great few days in central Sonora, concentrating our birding efforts along MX 16 between Hermosillo and Yecora. I’m still working on transforming our notes and lists into a formal report, but the carelessly composed, dusty-lensed photo above should give you a foretaste of Sierra Madrean glory.

There’s little more lovely than a desert river, and Darlene and I chose a fine day, if warm, to drive down to the Rio Magdalena in northern Sonora. We birded several spots between Imuris and San Ignacio, and though our hopes for a rarity remained just that, it was still a very pleasant day’s birding, [...]

The birding got harder once we arrived in the tropical deciduous forest of Alamos. It was largely the weather’s fault: it was cool, gray, and eventually rainy most of the time we were there. All the same, we got some good stuff, and, as always, enjoyed staying at the Rancho Acosta.
It was a very short [...]