Copper Canyon, Mexico- Sierra Madre Explorations - Intineraries & Pricing

"In spite of its ruggedness, Copper Canyon is a fragile environment... Canyon Travel's [columbus] trips feature resident naturalist guides and exclusive environmentally sound lodges."

"Where Silence Still Reigns" AUDUBON Magazine 10/02

Capture hummingbirds on film in Mexico's Copper Canyon.... One of these places is Hotel Rio Vista.

WILDBIRD Magazine May/June/04

Birding in Two Endemic Areas

BirdLife, the UK conservation group with the world's most complete data on birds, has mapped out 218 endemic bird areas (EBAs). Biodiversity that has evolved and has become uniquely confined into small areas are known as centers of endemism, and they posses not only a variety of endemic birds but also other animals and plants not found anywhere else. The natural habitats in most of the EBAs is tropical lowland forest and montane forest, and Mexico is one of the world's most biodiverse countries with 22 EBAs. There are 7 countries with more than 10 EBAs and only Indonesia and Brazil have more endemic areas.

El Fuerte Sinaloa is in the Northwest Pacific Slope EBA and has a prominence of dry tropical deciduous forest, thorn forest, and the tropical riparian habitat of the Fuerte River. Mexican dry forests have the highest level endemism of all Neotropical dry forests and the Sonoran Desert, just to the north, also harbors an impressive array of unique diversity.

The geographical location where the Sonoran Desert and the Sinaloan forest form a transition of habitats also forms a transition between the Neartic and the Neotropical biomes. This area is now known as the Sonoran-Sinaloan transition tropical dry forest.

The Sierra Madre Occidental EBA is a subtropical coniferous forest with a complex flora. The mountains' biotic communities, descending from the highest elevations, are: fir forest, pine forest with aspen and alder, mixed pine-oak-madrone forest, oak-grasslands and desert grasslands on the Chihuahuan Desert foothills, subtropical deciduous forest on other foothills and on canyon slopes and a cottonwood-willow-cypress riparian habitat at the bottom of the canyons. The sierra has the highest diversity of agave, pine and oak and botanical studies have estimated that the sierra may have up to 3,500 plant species with the discovery of 2,400 species in just one valley. Climatic variations with elevation are best experienced when descending from a snow-clad conifer forest on the canyon rim and in just a few hours arriving at a blooming and fruit laden canyon floor.

Russet-crowned Motmot

Squirrel Cuckoo

Resident Guides with Birding Expertise and Field Knowledge. Avid birders - Identify by song - Exceptional at spotting wildlife
Float the El Fuerte River for more miles than all other floats.
Trek the Urique Canyon riparian habitat, North America's deepest canyon and a forest where Lilac-crowned Parrots feed daily.
Custom designed trips for 8 to 12 birders may include fuly outfitted tent camping to the most pristine natural areas.

"I sensed I had wandered into the house we call ecology, a place that pretends to be carefully mapped but always turns out to be a labyrinth. The structure may have an edge but it seems to have no center. The forest is a question that we will never answer. The birds are screaming along the river, the butterflies pass on unannounced errands, the trees have so many names and shapes, the orchids are hiding up the canyons, safe on the cliff walls."

"This mass of trees is sometimes called the short-tree or dry tropical forest, which lies on the wet side of the thorn forest, a term Howard Scott Gentry, the pioneering botanist of the region, noted 'carries a loose rather than a precise meaning, thus often covering a multitude of sins.' Whatever the sins lurking in the term thorn forest, the same may be said of dry tropical forest. But the place is unmistakable, a wonderful collision of desert, and tropics and sierra, a meeting of biological worlds. Even the untrained eye can sense diverse life forms lapping up against one another. For a biologist, this melding of systems is a fistful of Latin names. For me, it is huge cactus fighting for light against the canopy of the enveloping forest. That is the image that struck me - giant cactus poking green arms up above the trees."

The Secret Forest by Charles Bowden
1993 by the Univ. of New Mexico Press

El Fuerte area birds: Bare-throated Tiger Heron, Common Black Hawk, Gray Hawk, Crested Caracara, Rufous-bellied Chachalaca, Elegant Quail, Mexican Parrotlet, White-fronted Parrot, Squirrel Cuckoo, Lesser Roadrunner, Groove-billed Ani, Colima Pygmy-Owl, Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl, Broad-billed Hummingbird, Violet-crowned Hummingbird, Plain-capped Starthroat, Elegant Trogon, Russet-crowned Motmot, Golden-cheeked Woodpecker, Grey-crowned Woodpecker, Grey-collared Becard, Masked Tityra, Social Flycatcher, Black-throated Magpie Jay, Purplish-backed Jay, Sinaloa Crow, Bridled Titmouse, Happy Wren, Sinaloa Wren, Black-capped Gnatcatcher, Rufous-backed Thrush, Aztec Thrush, Blue Mockingbird, Long-billed Thrasher, Grey Vireo, Mangrove Vireo, Rufous-capped Warbler, Fan-tailed Warbler, Euphonia, Red-headed Tanager, Yellow Grosbeak, Lazuli Bunting, Varied Bunting, Rufous-capped Brushfinch, Dark-eyed Junco, Black-vented Oriole, Ochre Oriole, Yellow-winged Cacique, etc.

Sierre Madre area birds: Sharp-shinned Hawk, Swainson's Hawk, Short-tailed Hawk, Zone-tailed Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, American Kestrel, Prairie Falcon, Band-tailed Pigeon, Thick-billed Parrot, Military Macaw, Lilac-crowned Parrot, Whiskered Screech Owl, White-eared Hummingbird, Broad-tailed Hummingbird, Rufous Hummingbird, Mountain Trogon, Eared Trogon, Acorn Woodpecker, Arizona Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Red-naped Sapsucker, Whitestripped Woodcreeper, Tufted Flycatcher, Steller's Jay, Chihuahua Raven, Mexican Chickadee, American Dipper, Red-faced Warbler, Browned-backed Solitare, Green-striped Brushfinch, Yellow-eyed Junco, etc.

Social Flycatcher

All photographs on this page were taken by Emilio Kifuri or by travelers with Canyon Travel.

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