Reaching up to Mexico’s northwest corner, Pacific dry deciduous forest extends south all the way to Costa Rica, providing a pathway into Sonora for many widespread tropical birds such as Gray Hawk, White-fronted Parrot, Squirrel Cuckoo, and Plain-capped Starthroat.  In the pine forests near Yecora, Rocky Mountain species like Pygmy Nuthatch and Steller’s Jay join mixed flocks with Mexican Chickadees and White-striped Woodcreepers derived from the Sierra Madre Occidental.  The long beaches and enormous mangrove estuaries in southern Sonora mark the northern limits of regular occurrence for a number of herons, ibis, and other waders.  Further swelling the ranks are the waves of migrants such as Townsend’s Warblers that must pass through Sonora to reach their southern wintering grounds.  The result is that approximately 550 species of birds—more than half of the avifauna of all Mexico—have occurred in Sonora.  Our week-long transect of lower Sonora will cut through habitats ranging from the seashore, to the southernmost boundary of true desert, to palm and fig tree canyon, to river gallery forest, to the flowering tree forest of the foothills, to the conifer-clad highlands.  Possible birds along our route will run the gamut from coastal Reddish Egrets, Roseate Spoonbills, and Black Skimmers to Mountain Trogons, Brown-backed Solitaires, and Slate-throated Redstarts in the Sierra Madre.  We will also visit the magnificent barrancas—or canyonlands—along the border with Chihuahua.  Here we’ll search for such sought-after Mexican specialties as Spotted Wren, Blue Mockingbird, Russet Nightingale-Thrush, and Crescent-chested Warbler.  South of the frost line at subtropical Alamos, gorgeous Elegant Trogons will compete for our attention with the crested, two-foot-long Black-throated Magpie-Jays.  Other species we’ll watch for in the Alamos area are endemic Mexican Parrotlets, Elegant Quail, Purplish-backed Jays, and Black-vented Orioles.  Alamos has been designated as a national historic landmark by Mexico to preserve its Spanish colonial flavor. In Alamos streets are tiled, Moorish arches draped with bougainvillea shade spacious verandas, and a palm-lined plaza faces a great stone church constructed in the late 1700s.  This trip is remarkable for the beauty of both town and countryside, as well as the pinwheel colors of the wings that fill the air. 

Photo: Blue Mockingbird
Photo by:  David MacKay

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