Revillagigedo Islands (1 Viewer)

[Arbu]

Am I right in thinking that there is no realistic way of seeing the endemic land birds of the Revillagigedo Islands? They are on Socorro and Clarion Islands. There are dive boats which go to the latter, but it doesn't seem as if they are allowed to put you onshore. Maybe if you take a telescope you might see them from the boat, especially the parakeets, I don't know.

 

[pbjosh]

You are correct. I think shy of working for/with a Mexican government/university program, the Mexican military, or similar, there is no way to land on Socorro or Clarion. Some boats do occasionally go to the islands but cannot land. There was a chartered trip on Searcher out of S California a few years back to look for seabirds. I do not recall if they managed to see any of the land birds.

 

[Arbu]

Thanks. Maybe if you are a diver as well as a birder this trip might be worth doing as you'd probably get the Shearwater. But it seems to be one to do when you are retired (and over 60) because it seems that then you can get the $480 park fees waived. Seems exorbitant when you're not even allowed to go onshore.

 

[pbjosh]

Thanks. Maybe if you are a diver as well as a birder this trip might be worth doing as you'd probably get the Shearwater. But it seems to be one to do when you are retired (and over 60) because it seems that then you can get the $480 park fees waived. Seems exorbitant when you're not even allowed to go onshore.

But a small portion of the overall cost of a visit there...

Hopefully at some point some sort of landing / access deal can be brokered. Similarly to how Serge Arias has made arrangements for birders to book onto a dive boat to Cocos Island and then be able to actually bird the island. I'm sort of holding out hope for that. Though I casually know a few of the folks at CONANP and might entertain the thought of leveraging a bit of a connection and perhaps making a charitable donation then trying to sneak in as a guest researcher, it's a lot of mucking around and asking for favors that I'm not owed, and I'm not terribly confident that it would even work. I still think it would be exceedingly difficult to visit, and would probably not be possible to visit both islands. But hopefully at some point access will become viable...

 

[Arbu]

Park fees are now $600 and here's a trip for $2800 LiveAboard: Socorro Island - Sun Rider Tours. So not so small a portion. There are always other places I can go to while I wait to qualify.