Rancho Esmeralda

Tue., Sep. 13 – Thu., Sep. 15

By Mary Lee Kopen

  Fortified by a 7 a.m. -continental breakfast and introductions to our 12 travel companions, we board a van for our three-day trip to eco-heaven.  We will encounter elegant trogans, a rose-throated becard nest, a snake the diameter of cooked spaghetti, whirligig beetles, and the wing of a zone-tailed hawk. 

    Our destination is Rancho Esmeralda, a 30,000-acre eco-tourism enterprise about 15 miles south of Nogales , Mexico .  The group of  150-year-old working ranches has owners who work to combine low-impact cattle ranching with the preservation of their large tract of wilderness in the Auispas Mountains of  Sonora .  A newly constructed, completely solar-powered lodge with dormitory-style men’s and women’s quarters will be our home for two blissful nights.  And never fear, the dormitory format does not bring loss of creature-comforts.  We are pampered and fed like royalty.

   On arrival we are shown to our QUEEN-size bunks, each with its own reading light, shelves, curtains and drawers. This is a small group, so no one must climb to the upper berth. The great room linking the dormitory wings is dominated by a hand-carved stone fireplace, with many lighted display niches. It was constructed on site, by Mexican artisans. A large pool and spa beckon, but we natural-history buffs won’t have time for that!

   We have already had our first close encounter.  A gopher snake is lying on the rough, dirt road, an apparent traffic victim. But our reptile expert, Randy Babb of the Arizona Game and Fish Department, picks it up and finds the snake a bit mashed, but alive. Randy believes the snake may recover; we have had our first lesson.  The snake retreats into the ditch.

    During the next three days we will be led by naturalist Pinau Merlin (the author of Field Guide to Desert Holes and many other natural history books and articles). In addition to Randy, the reptile, fish and insect guru, we are treated to the ornithological talents of Larry Liese, a tireless and engaging bird expert. He is a board member of the Tucson Audubon Society.

   We will explore many habitats (streams, side canyons, oak woodlands) during four day hikes and two night jaunts. An afternoon mini-Spanish lesson is also planned.  And each night we will update the lists of  plants, birds and other species we have encountered.

   We meander along streams lined with magnificent Arizona sycamore, five species of oak, willows, Arizona walnut, netleaf hackberry -- and at one creek-bend we see four palo chino trees. Pinau, always ready with fascinating tidbits, tells us this is the farthest north the species has been identified.  She also points out a perennial herb with the clever, but sexist, Spanish common name mala mujer, meaning bad woman. Its stiff hairs can inflict an irritating and painful rash. He probably deserved it!

   There are wild morning glories and scarlet creeper.  Sacred datura sprawls in large hummocks; on the stem of one datura blossom  a green lynx spider munches a skipper butterfly; a definite Kodak moment.

   Another botanical treat is the presence of many organpipe cacti. The fingerlike columns cling to the canyon walls, reminding us we are south of the border, where  temperatures allow the organpipe to thrive.  What a difference a few miles can make.

   We see elegant trogans the first afternoon. The iridescent, parrotlike, neo-tropical bird will never be seen in the lifetime of many birders, and we already have multiple sightings.  Pinau points out the magnificent hanging nest of the rose-throated becard.  We must be content with the nest; no becards show themselves.  In the next few days we see vermilion and olive-sided flycatchers, Western and summer tanagers, Bullock’s and Scott’s orioles,  a belted kingfisher and a peregrine falcon.  Our final bird-species total is 74, counting a great blue heron spotted as we pulled, homeward bound, onto a highway from the rugged ranch road.

     We ARE on a ranch, so a lasso lesson seems appropriate.  We never expect to see Randy lasso tiny lizards with a nylon loop on the end of a fishing pole; the announcement of his intention is greeted with derisive hoots.  But he snares three: a baby lesser earless lizard, a Clark ’s spiny lizard, and a canyon (or giant) spotted whiptail lizard. We get a close look, eyeball to eyeball, top-side and flip-side, and the chance to feel the texture of the spiny’s scales.

   Randy also grabs a lowland leopard frog for our inspection, and he points out oddly-marked calligraphy beetles.  A fellow hiker spies a tiny, wriggling worm, and he gets a three-gold-star award from Randy.  The critter is a Yaqui black-headed snake, and it is about the diameter of cooked spaghetti. It looks more  like a skinny earthworm than a snake, but there it is – a microcosm of snakedom about six inches long.  On a later hike we encounter another Yaqui, a bit fatter and several inches longer.  They are SO petite!! 

   In the streams and pools we see Sonoran chub, water striders, tadpoles, and tiny Sonoran and  red-spotted toads.  We have to watch our footfalls to avoid squashing toads.  A horsehair worm in a pool looks exactly like a stray horse hair, but this water creature can change its shape at will.  Jumping spiders and orb weavers are present. Randy finds a one-inch hole with webbing around the top -- and after some prolonged waggling, his forefinger lures a tarantula out of its lair.  Taken aback by the gawking  audience, the tarantula retreats quickly and won’t be lured out, even by a tasty bug offered on a stick.  We leave it as a peace offering.

   The nocturnal outings produce many rewards.  We visit a ranch-cottage porch  and an outbuilding that  bats use as  night roosts and are rewarded by the sight of clumps of pallid bats and a few cave myotis bats. We hear their high pitched calls.  Randy dons leather gloves and nets a pallid bat, which we examine in the beam of Pinau’s red headlight.  Tiny, needlelike teeth  and a huge mouth look like great tools for an insect-eater.  We get to feel its furry back and the silky membrane of its wings.  What cute ears.  And it IS pallid. A leather glove is transferred and one of our group gets to release the (relieved) bat.  The next night we get the same experience with a cave myotis bat. It is smaller and darker.

   Nightime also reveals the eyeshine of  spiders along the edge of our gravel path!!  Who knew??? You check out animal eyeshine by holding your flashlight beside your head at eye level and see what shines back at you.  The intrepid Randy plucks a spider from an eyeshine location, silencing the skeptics. We see eyeshine in trees, and hear the calls of  the Western screech-owl, common poor-will and the whip-poor-will.  Eyeshine also reveals an antelope jackrabbit.

   The last morning’s hike, this time up Planchas de Plata (Sheets of Silver) Canyon, yields a special discovery.  We find the wing of a zone-tailed hawk along the stream. Just the wing, no body.  Lots of feathers in the vicinity.  A short distance away we find another small section of the graceful wing.  There is much speculation on what befell the doomed hawk.  His wing is the perfect prop for Pinau’s explanation of the mechanics of feathers and flight.  We also see first-hand the hollow bone structure of  birds.

   Have I mentioned the butterflies, moths, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and scorpions.  Or the animal tracks (ringtail, skunk, heron, snake, rabbit, deer, and what may have been a mountain lion)?  The ranchers tell us there are no coyotes on their land. They say the mountain lions make sure of that. Every organism has its place in this teeming ecosystem.  That interdependence has been the constant theme of our  Rancho Esmeralda exploration.

  Traveling with friendly, knowledgeable natural history experts has opened our minds to the amazing diversity we are visiting.  The excitement and pleasure of our guides is infectious, and  I am anxious to build on this new store of knowledge and experience.  Bring on, please, the next Tohono Chul Park Travel Ed-venture

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