Silver Emperor at NBC, 6/17/14

It's been hot and dry lately with few butterflies, but I figured I would head on over to the National Butterfly Center anyway cuz I'm not going to see much just sitting around the house.  When I arrived Marianna told me Louie had just seen a female Silver Emperor.  Well it took me nearly four hours of wandering around and sweating profusely but she finally showed up on bait log #2.  What a beauty!  I had seen one years ago at Santa Ana but these are my first photos.  I was surprised how big it is.

Down in the ditch seemed to be the most productive place to get mosquito bitten and find interesting butterflies.  Second place today goes to this Two-barred Flasher.

Another good bug in the ditch was this surprise Soldier.  I have not seen one in months.

And yet another ditch denizen was this shade loving Fawn-spotted skipper, another species I have not seen lately.

The biggest surprise in the ditch was a cluster of twenty two Dusky-blue Groundstreaks all roosting at the base of a hackberry.  Pretty weird.  Eight are visible in this photo.

Back in the sunshine, I found this sharp female Red-bordered Metalmark, another species I have not seen in months.  This is really an underrated bug.

Here's a fresh Gray Hairstreak.

And I'll finish with a Crimson Patch on frogfruit.