Tiger Mimic-Queen at NBC, 12/22/13

I arrived at the National Butterfly Center at 9:30 this cool morning.  Yesterday's cold front had blown out the cloudy humid weather and left us with beautiful sunshine.  Mark and Holly were already there hoping for a repeat performance from yesterday's Tiger Mimic-Queen.  Well, it took a while but Mark found in the ditch at about 11.  I ran about 50 yards to where he had seen the butterfly only to get a glimpse of it sailing through the trees.  We split up and headed north through the woods.  After a bit I saw this huge orange and yellow butterfly bouncing rapidly toward me..........and passing about four feet away from my face.  So I went running after it but lost it again.  We eventually refound it nectaring on some Lantana.  What a cool bug.

It took off again and we found it in the ditch and got our final shots before it left for good.  There's only a handful of records for this species north of the Border.  I don't know if any of those were photographed alive.

Earlier the Blomfild's Beauty put in an appearance.  This is one far out butterfly.

Mark and Holly had put the Mexican Silverspot to bed last night. It was sleeping in late at the same spot this morning.  And eventually it got up and did a few laps around the Lantana.

It's not everyday one gets to see four members of the Monarch subfamily, Danainae.  But we had the Tiger Mimic-Queen, Monarch, Queen and Soldier.

It's been a few weeks since I had seen a Purple-washed Skipper so this one was a surprise after a mostly skipperless yesterday.

So it turned out to be a darn good day.  As they say, "I'd rather be lucky than good."