SABO now offers 5-day tours to this area between May and September. For information on future tours, contact the Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory. For general information on visiting northwestern Mexico, please see SABO's Guide to Birding in Northwestern Mexico.

There is also small-scale ranching and farming in the mountains. Livestock have heavily overgrazed some areas, leaving few grasses and herbs on the forest floor. Another type of agriculture, marijuana cultivation, has declined over the last few years thanks to increased military and police presence in the area.

In the area around Madera, a cooperative effort between conservationists and local residents has led to the establishment of sanctuaries in critical breeding and roosting areas. Over 700 parrots have been counted at a single roost, one of the largest remaining flocks known.

The parrot's future depends on expanding existing protected areas and gaining cooperation from local communities. Ecotourism provides a means by which rural economies can benefit from continued protection of the parrot's forest home.

The soft wood of Quaking Aspens is ideal for excavating nest cavities. Aspen is a characteristic species of dynamic forests with ongoing ecological succession. Though it can't compete with pines and firs, it grows quickly to fill sunny openings left by fires, landslides, and even logging. It takes a large trunk to hold a parrot-sized nest cavity, and few aspens live the several decades required to grow to such size. Fire suppression may threaten the parrots' future by allowing pines and other climax vegetation to flourish at the expense of their preferred nest trees.

Most Thick-billed Parrot nests are 20 feet above ground or higher, but the trees often grow on slopes where it's possible to get a more comfortable view (right). This youngster's nursery was at eye level just a few yards off a narrow logging road; it fledged within an hour of the time this photo was taken. The pale bill is characteristic of young birds; adults' bills are solid black.

This species has nested in Arizona, though only a single nest has been documented. See Williamson 1992 for details.

The iridescent wing coverts are another way in which the Eared Quetzal resembles the other quetzals and differs from "ordinary" trogons (as if any trogon was ordinary!).

Eared Quetzals also use the same large aspen trees preferred by Thick-billed Parrots. Though they seldom create their own cavities "from scratch," their bills are strong enough to "remodel" cavities in the soft wood. The typical clutch of two eggs is laid on a bed of wood debris chewed and chipped from the interior of the cavity. The eggs are pale blue like those of other quetzals; typical trogons lay white eggs.

Nesting begins as early as late spring, but most pairs nest from July to September. The young leave the nest before their tail feathers are fully grown and will be dependent on their parents for weeks or months to come as they learn what they'll need to know to survive. As far as is known, Eared Quetzal pairs can raise only one brood per year.

"Team Guaca": Parrot researchers Diana Venegas Holguin and Javier Cruz-Nieto (above left, front) and their field assistants Mark (back left), José Luis (back middle) and Chuy (back right). Diana and Javier call Chihuahua City home but live in Madera during the field season. The team works under the direction of Ernesto Enkerlin-Hoeflich, professor at Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM or "Monterrey Tech"), Executive Director of Pronatura-Noreste, and Coordinator of Latin-American Projects for Wildlife Preservation Trust International.

The team's work includes monitoring nests. At right, Chuy climbs to a quetzal nest and lowers a video camera inside to check its progress (the young had already fledged).

International Wildlife article on the parrot project

Northern (Mountain) Pygmy-Owls are more common—or at least easier to see and hear—in northwestern Mexico than in Arizona. It may be that Mexican birds are less savvy to birder behavior than their American counterparts and so more easily fooled by imitations of their calls. This individual responded to "tooting" near a spring beside a steep mountain road. These tiny but fierce predators feed on small birds, mammals, and reptiles and are often mobbed by Mexican Chickadees, Painted and Slate-throated redstarts, Crescent-chested Warblers, and White-eared Hummingbirds.

Other owls of the region include Spotted, Whiskered Screech, Flammulated, Northern Saw-whet, and even the rare and mysterious Stygian. Burrowing Owls are common inhabitants of the prairie dog towns of northwestern Chihuahua, one of the stops on the Parrots & Quetzals tours.

It's not all about birds. In the cool pine forests above Madera, the August 2004 group admires a Mexican-plateau Horned Lizard (Phrynosoma orbiculare, adult far right). This species resembles the Short-horned Lizard (P. hernandesi) found in the "sky islands" of southeastern Arizona but has larger spines on its head and back. Horned lizards that live in deserts and grasslands lay eggs, but species such as this one that inhabit cool climates give birth to live young (near right).

Thanks to our friend and colleague John Karges for horned lizard identification.

The late summer rainy season brings out colorful flowers, including the exotic-looking saucer-sized Tiger Flower or Mexican Shell Flower (Tigridia pavonia), a tropical member of the iris family. It has been bred in many color varieties and can survive in warmer parts of the U.S. Relatives of other familiar garden flowers and house plants grow wild in the mountains around Madera, including pink and yellow cosmos, zinnias, salvias, columbines, dahlias, angel-wing begonias, poinsettias, and orchids.

The western Sierra Madre is one of the world's centers for oak diversity. According to the World Wildlife Fund, the state of Chihuahua is home to 25 species of oaks, approximately twice as many species as are found in Arizona. Identification can be difficult, but these very large leaves with tan wooly undersides fit the description of Quercus macvaughii, whose leaves are second in size only to the Tarahumara or Handbasin Oak, Quercus tarahumara.

As we climb the road leading west out of Madera,  a sign points the way to the Tutuaca/Conoachi parrot sanctuary (above), a cooperative effort of local ejidos and the international conservation community

On the other side of the mountains from Madera, a 50-year-old suspension bridge (left) crosses Huapoca Canyon. Local tourist guides lead raft and kayak trips through this narrow, scenic passage. Less than a mile upriver, a state park features developed hot springs, with pools and camping facilities. For the adventurous, nearby natural hot springs flow right into the river. 

The habitat here is a mix of arid thornscrub, oaks, and pines; birds and butterflies abounded during our mid-October visit.

The area is rich in history as well. Hundreds of cliff dwellings, from single rooms to elaborate residential and ceremonial complexes worthy of Mesa Verde, are tucked into secluded canyons throughout the mountains. Many of the Tarahumara, one of Mexico's largest and least culturally assimilated indigenous groups, still live in similar cave houses and use some of the sites.  

At developed archeological sites such as Quarenta Casas ("Forty Houses," above left), interpretive signs tell the story of life in ancient Chihuahua in Spanish, English, and Tarahumara (above).