There are still plenty of butterfly species I have not seen in the great nation of Texas. One of my goals this year was to run up to the Coastal Bend and look for False Duskywing. We are supposed to get them in the Rio Grande Valley but I've never seen one. Enter Craig Robson. This past spring I had the chance to meet Craig and his lovely wife at the National Butterfly Center and even got them a lifer Angled Leafwing. At the time I thought his name sounded familiar. Later I realized he was the author of Birds of Southeast Asia and many articles I had read in the Oriental Birding Club publication Birding Asia. He had recently entered a records into iNaturalist of False Duskywing and Salt Marsh Skipper from the Rockport Area.
After an uneventful day butterflywise yesterday, I decided to run up to Rockport. I would still have Saturday to look for butterflies before the approaching cold front. I arrived at the Linda Castro Wildlife Area about 10 am and started working the flowers. Plenty of butterflies but northing noteworthy A sit at one of the drips turned up a late Tennessee Warbler.
Best butterfly was a White-striped Longtail.
After lunch I did another round of the trails. Here's a nice Pipevine Swallowtail.
This was the best spot for False Duskywing on the Coastal Bend and I was coming up empty. I was going to give it a few more minutes and then go to the Salt Marsh Skipper spot when I got a brief glympse of what looked to be a small spreadwing skipper. It was a beat up False Duskywing.
Now I headed to the Cove Harbor trail just south of Rockport for Salt Marsh Skipper. I arrived to find a boardwalk runing into the marsh. But nearby flowers by a brushy spot attracted my attention. I checked them out and quickly found a little golden Panoquina. "Wow that was easy" I thought. I fired a few shots but was disappointed when I looked at the images. It was a Panoquina alright, but the spots were wrong. One dot and a space and two more dots.... it was a darn Obsure Skipper like we have on the salt marshes of Cameron County.
I found several more but not the Salt Marsh skipper. Maybe they like it wetter. So I walked the muddy edges and only saw more Obscure Skippers. I walked back over to the flowers thinking I might have to walk the boardwalk. One more skipper landed on a betony mist flower and this time the spot was right. I got my lifer Salt Marsh Skipper.
