Sycamore Canyon and the Pajarita Mountains - 5/16/2015 - Tropical life and tropical peoples where Mexican butterflies and Mexican migration meet in southern Arizona's most tropical of canyons

At about 10:00 in the morning this past Saturday (5/16/2015) I found myself just a couple of miles into Sycamore Canyon, a remarkably wet, north-south running canyon in western Santa Cruz County, AZ (More info on Sycamore Canyon from Coronado National Forest ). The canyon is somewhat famous in biogeographic circles for it's tropical influences of flora and fauna meeting with more northerly species. I was at a point in the canyon I refer to as 'the narrows', where enough water in the stream bed precludes a traveler from following the creek bottom, and the rock along the sides is steep and relatively smooth enough to warrant very close climbing attention - a slip would mean a bath in the best case scenario,  and a busted ankle in the worst.

The 'narrows' of Sycamore Canyon.

Sycamore Canyon, a ribbon of riparian through the Atascosa Mountains of southern Arizona

It was at this moment, trying to figure out how I should approach this canyon conundrum, when a flash of blue and black flushed from the rocks below my feet, the flash revealed it's self as a brushfoot butterfly (a large family including some of the most recognized species, like the Monarch). The butterfly glided, and then batted wings again up and above me. While I only had a fleeting look in flight for a moment, it's size, color pattern, and my biogeographic location sent my heart-rate into overdrive. Adrenaline kicked in as I slung my pack down, quickly grabbed my camera (with my 'good butterfly glass', my canon f3.5, 18-135mm lens) and began a frantic chase after this butterfly up ledges, down rock slides in a frenzied ballet of lepidopteran proportions. The butterfly alit on a vertical cliff face, a Bluewing! I was able to approach slowly, with the sun to my back, but my shadow off to the side of the butterfly. This is the number one rule in butterfly chasing, your shadow is your biggest enemy and number one factor in inadvertenly flushing a butterfly, given the right shadow-management (I'm coining this term here, let's see if it sticks!) you can put your finger on a skipper's proboscis. I was able to get stellar photographs of this Blackened Bluewing, a member of an extremely attractive, large group of tropical brushfoots, and a very rare stray to the United States. 

Blackened Bluewing butterfly in Sycamore Canyon, Santa Cruz Co., AZ, 5/16/2015

I had experience with this species from a very brief previous encounter in the Alamos region of southern Sonora, Mexico last summer, but no photographs and an all too fleeting look. In birding terms this would be like a slate-throated redstart or something of that tropical magnitute gracing this side of the border. After 15 minutes of watching this superb specimen I gathered my wits, allowed my heart rate to return to something approaching normal and climbed over (river right) the narrows. 

 

Sycamore Canyon downstream of the narrows, long pools like this and hundreds of others are connected during high flow months and support several species of desert canyon fish, as well as a host of dragonflies and damselflies.

The other side of the narrows instantly felt different, perhaps it was happenstance, but upon getting off the rocks I instantly found one of the canyon's most famous plant residents, the famed ball-moss. This pineapple-family species (Bromeliads) is a farily common flowering epiphyte in Coastal regions of Texas (More info on Wikipedia). This is not Texas. This is far from Texas, and could not be considered coastal by any means. The nearest other population of this species is found many miles away to the south. 

This botanical oddity was not alone, just downstream of this point, from beneath the shade of Pinons, Sycamores, Willow, and Wanut, towering above this riparian corridor stood a massive 12m tall Saguaro, a stately centurian with full blooms. A handful of these giant columnar sentinals guard over the canyon from the arid heights above, ever reminding one of the desert that lies just outside of the watertable's reach. The tree and shrub diversity (of which I feel I'm qualified to talk about, the number of herbaceous plants must be truly amazing, but I'm a macro-botanist!) in a place like Sycamore Canyon is truly amazing; Rocky Mountain, One-seed, Alligator Junipers, Sycamore, Cottonwood, Walnut, Willows, Black Cherry, Pinon, Chihuahan Pine, Poison Ivy (as a vine, shrub, and undergrowth plant), Ceanothus, Chuparosa, and oaks, lots of oaks; Emory, Netleaf, Arizona-white, and probably more I missed. 

The trophy bird of southern Arizona, a male Elegant Trogon. Sycamore canyon is home to many many Trogans, unusual given the canyon's lack of surrounding pine habitat and relatively low elevation.

Another look at a male Elegant Trogan, this photograph shows off the huge bulging eye of the Trogon.

I should add somewhere in this post that I saw a few birds in Sycamore canyon as well as rare butterflies and cool trees. Over the course of 3 days I spent in the canyon, Friday afternoon - Sunday morning, I saw 70+ species, including 11 Elegant Trogans, Gray Hawk, Zone-tailed Hawk,  Common-black Hawk, Northern Beardless Tyrannulet, Rufous-winged Sparrows, and Varied Buntings. With Summer Tanagers and Vermilion Flycatchers around every corner, this was truly a fantastic couple days of colorful, quintessential Southern Arizona birds. As the missle-like trilling of Montezuma quail ran right into the rhythmic notes of the Common Poorwill as the stars, unhindered by any light pollution, began to put on their show. At my camp near the mouth of the canyon I heard Elf Owls barking and Great-horned Owls hooting away. (List of checklists: Friday Evening eBird checklist , Saturday's long hike eBird checklist , Saturday evening eBird checklist - owls , Sunday morning eBird checklist )

A young curious Bewick's Wren, showing his youthful gape, that orange extending from the bill back in the cheek. In nearly all species this is a great field mark for distinguishing juvenile birds.

Human Elements
When I bird the borderlands, the border issues that are an everyday fact for a handful of migrants, smugglers, and border patrol agents is never far from my thoughts. As someone who is very liberal when it comes to immigration reform, anti-NAFTA, and disdains the economic subjugation of Mexico by the US, I'm filled with mixed emotions when I come across the tell-tale signs of human migration northward into the US. On the one hand, part of me is initially glad that people are making the trip, going after a better life. On the immediate second hand is the sorrow and anger I feel for the people making the trip, putting their lives in this sort of danger while our country 'fixes' the immigration problem by hiring more buzz-cut Border Patrol agents and new shiny  all-terrain trucks. This seems to be a very American sensibility, fix domestic and economic issues of the world with more law enforcement and militarization.

Waterjug handle, Sycamore Canyon, Santa Cruz Co., AZ

Sycamore canyon is a classic smuggling route (I'll use smuggling here to mean people, drugs, anything, right or wrong), it heads directly north and south, with the far downstream end of the canyon deep into Mexico. I found the signs of people making the journey in their water jugs, old pants, beach towels with superman depiction, and wrappers from packages of mexican ramen noodles and potato chips. I also found the shreds of burlap and carpet booties, those artifacts of  drug smuggling rather than people migration (Burlap sacks are used to transport bales of marijuana, some weighing up to 60lbs. 'Carpet booties' are rough sewn slippers that are put over a pair of boots, they're made of shag carpet, and mask the direction of a footstep and lessen the depth of a footprint, making it difficult to judge how much weight a person is carrying). While the hair on the back of my neck doesn't stand up anymore from this kind of thing, my awareness levels in this region are always at a high level, sometimes I feel like a housecat; every sound or slightest movement gets my attention as my brain runs through my acoustical-visual algorithm to determine the causal agent. If one listens hard enough, you can distinguish between a rock let loose by a Rock Squirrel or a rubber-soled boot.

The cave with the names. This cave has probably been used for millenia, by peoples from the ancestral homeland, by people from the south, and perhaps by a jaguar a night or two.

About 4 miles south into the canyon I came across a cave. This was a large, 120 sqft fairly flat floor, nice overhang that would make a cozy hideout in a big rain. The signs of use were everywhere, backpacks, clothes, water bottles, sterno heat cans. The names were the most interesting, supposedly nicknames of smugglers written on the walls, El Koro IIII, or El Tigre III, I took these to mean the number of times they'd made the trip. I wondered if they were still out here in the canyon somehwere, down in Mexico somewhere, or in a jail stateside anywhere. Quien sabe, but the names on the wall remain.

Samaritan water jugs. Por un mundo sin fronterras - For a world without borders.

While the relicts of migrants and smugglers were prevalent in the lower reaches of the canyon, they weren't the only evidence of this second, 'non natural history enthusiast' side of the canyon. The 'samaritans' a loosely, if-at all organized group that seeks to aid people on their journey puts out jugs of clean drinking water in some of these heavily trafficked routes. Each jug had different hand-written messages scrawled on them. No telling how long these had been there, or when they'll be used, but they're there for the weary traveler.

Beauty in the seeps of Sycamore Canyon, a stunning male damsefly (unknown species at the moment).

In the end the only mammals I saw on my walk were a few old rough looking Rock Squirrels. They barked their piping notes from on high as i clumsily walked through their canyon on my vastly inferior two legs compared to their four.

Rock Squirrel, with his mottled gray fur blending in perfectly with the surrounding limestone.

 One other mammal sign is worth a note, and a photo. As I scrambled through a section of the stream bed, I jumped across a pool and landed in soft river gravel, as I landed my heart stopped beating for a moment as I saw a track next to my own boot. This canyon is classic cat country, this mountain lion track was very fresh, potentially from the evening before. While I feel relatively prepared for mountains lions (don't ever bend down, turn away, and bark like a ferocious dog), seeing their track in this sort of rocky canyon, the kind of canyon where they have ancient routes, innumerable hiding spots, and the physical advantage in every sense of the word reminds me of our frailty and place on the food chains. Man may have mastered nature in urban settings, and in the farm  fields of the midwest, and even to some extent here in the southwest, but when traveling alone in a remote mountain canyon, you're in the stronghold of Mountain Lions and Jaguars, and one would do wise to remember it.

Fresh mountain lion track and my boot-print. Sycamore Canyon, AZ 5/16/2015

 The remainder of the hike back to my camp was just as wonderful as in the morning, dragonflies and damselflies filled the air, I added a few more butterfly species to the day's list (which ended with 30+ species, list to be included to the end of this post soon) including some beautiful, tiny, and very accommodating Orange Skipperlings that let me get great macro shots of them. This beautiful, fresh winged individual is in the classic 'jet-fighter' pose that skippers use to maximize warming up their wings.

I returned to my camp by 1800, tired, and ready for an ice cold Modelo that was waiting for me in my cooler. This canyon is one of those special places of the southwest, where the addition of a little water in this arid land brings in Trogons that roost over head, Common Black Hawks who come screaming out of the Sycamores, and the Mountain Lions that still prowl the cool evening hours, and life from the southern portions of the continent, both human and other, that still come to travel this most ancient of migratory corridors. Until next time, hasta luego! - Will JW

One of the hundreds of pools of Sycamore Canyon, Arizona.

Full Butterfly list
Pipevine Swallowtail
Giant Swallowtail
Tiger Swallowtail sp
Orange Sulphur
Mimosa Yellow
Dainty Sulphur
Mexican Yellow
Reakerts Blue
Marine Blue
Gray Hairstreak
Juniper 'Silva' Hairstreak

'Dark Tropical' Buckeye
Common Buckeye
Painted Lady
Queen
Bordered Patch
Red Satyr
Texan Crescent
Blackened Bluewing
Gulf Frillary
Fatal Metalmark
Common Checkered Skipper
Erichson's White Skipper
Orange Skipperling
Skipper sp (pic, working on ID)
Arizona Skipper


Dragonflies
Filigree Skimmer
Flame Skimmer
Red Rock Skimmer
Blue Darner sp