Butterflies of SE Arizona

Southeast Arizona is my favorite birding location in the lower 48. The wife and I took a trip there in early August where the temperatures were lower than Martinsburg and the humidity was less. There was a chance of monsoon thunderstorms every day and these probabilities were enhanced by remnants of a dissipating tropical system near the Mexican Baja. Nevertheless, with this being the first sortie into AZ for leps anytime spent looking would probably produced some lifers. Along the way I did take time to hike Ramsey Canyon looking for Tufted Flycatcher (successfully).

The semi-arid lowlands of southeast Arizona are punctuated by mountain islands rising to 10,000 feet. This allows for multiple bio-zones to occur and thus more species can be found within a very short distance. When it was 90 degrees at 4,500 ft in the valleys it was in the 70’s around 7,000+ ft. I started the vacation by helping out on the Patagonia NABA count. The count this year tallied an average 87 species (record is 103 species).  I was on a team that spent a lot of time in and around Patagonia State Park. We walked about 5 miles during the day with a couple of those miles spent walking through Sonoita Creek. Although not too deep, the gravel and sometimes sandy bottom made it a slog at times but quite refreshing. Our team found 49 species with the highlight being an Elf that would not sit long enough for photos. No matter, it was great find and only the second time the count had recorded that species. Other notables on the trip included Zela, Arizona and Palmer’s Metelmark, Moon-marked Skipper and Orange-edged Roadside-Skipper. We spent the balance of the vacation playing tourist visiting other canyons in the Huachuca and Chiricahua mountains. Also visited was the San Pedro House near our staging point of Sierra Vista. In all we saw 76 species of which sixteen were lifers.

View from Montezuma Pass – Coronado National Memorial:

Click on any image below to enlarge