In case you haven’t heard, Arizona has an oceanfront beach after all. Of course, you have to travel across 60 miles of Mexico to get to it, and, yes, Mexico does claim ownership, but Google “Arizona’s Beach” and you’ll see what I mean. Puerto Penasco (Rocky Port), originally Puerto Punto Penasco (Rocky Point Port) was developed when a road was built to connect Mexico’s peninsular state of Baja California with Sonora. Best known by Gringos as Rocky Point, Puerto Penasco lies along the upper crescent of the Gulf of California, or the Sea of Cortez. The coastline alternates between lava rock and golden sand, and what used to be a sleepy fishing village has grown into a bustling tourist destination with timeshares, high-rise condos, excellent restaurants and a wide variety of available activities from scuba diving to golf. With open ocean frontage, coves, bays and estuaries, it’s also home to great birding you might not expect so close to landlocked Arizona.
Rocky Point easily qualifies as “Arizona’s Beach,” since it sits less than 220 miles from both of Arizona’s largest cities, Phoenix and Tucson. From SaddleBrooke’s Minit Market, it’s 242 miles to Rocky Point’s Sam’s Club, a trip that takes just 5 hours and 30 minutes. Mexican Insurance is required for your car (easily obtained in Tucson with a phone call), but car permits and tourist visas that can delay you an hour on the way to San Carlos, are not required.
As for birding, which goes unmentioned in the “Arizona’s Beach” Google searches, eBird lists e11 hotspots with a total of 258 different species recorded. This is about the same number listed for Catalina State Park, but it includes a lot of birds you’ll never see near SaddleBrooke, including Yellow-footed Gull (a Sea of Cortez endemic), American Oystercatcher, Surfbird, eight different terns, Red Tropicbird, Black-vented Shearwater, two storm-petrels and both Brown and Blue-footed Boobies, among many others. We toured these eBird hotspots in mid-July 2015, and even though the best birding runs from fall to spring when more migratory birds show up, we documented 57 species, including 11 we had not yet found in Sonora.
Of the 11 eBird hotspots, some are easier to find and more productive than others. The best and easiest to access are the port, the malecon, the settlement ponds, Cholla Bay and Pelican beach, which has been absorbed by Laguna del Mar resort. Las Conchas is a residential area east of downtown and provides excellent birding along the coast, but it’s a gated community, difficult to access unless you are staying in a rental home there, which is what we chose to do on our last trip. We have also rented in Playa Encanto, another gated community farther east, which provides good access to the largest estuary, Marua. The Mayan Palace is the easternmost development, with a public golf course and restaurants. That entry road is also gated, but birders are permitted in (tell them you’re headed to the restaurant), and the long dirt road provides birding opportunities as well as some access to the nearby La Pinta estuary, an eBird hotspot. If you are headed to Puerto Penasco, email me for detailed directions and more information for all of the hotspots.
One morning in Las Conchas, sitting on our ocean-view deck and enjoying a cup of coffee, we realized we were seeing flocks of Blue-footed Boobies flying by, east to west, in what seemed non-ending groups. We started counting, and the flocks, which ranged from a dozen birds to 50, streamed by for two hours, at about 50 birds per minute. In other words, we sipped our coffee and watched 6,000 Blue-footed Boobies fly by our condo. And this was during the slow-birding summer. Winter birding there will blow you away.
If you have questions or comments about SaddleBrooke’s birds, or to receive emailed information about bird walks led by Bob and Prudy, call 825-9895 or email bobandpru@gmaill.com. Previously published articles can be found at www.birdingthebrookeandbeyond.com.
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