Nine Hairstreak day at the National Butterfly Center, 11/21/15

Today I made another prefrontal run over to the National Butterfly Center hoping to get a little warm weather before our first real cold blast of the fall.  One of my first butterflies of the day was this very pretty Common Melwhite found yesterday afternoon.

I've been seeing a lot of hairstreaks lately and over the past week and have seen seven and eight species in a single day.  But I've failed to match the nine species from Christmas Day 2012.   Once again the common species started to pile up in a hurry.  First it was the common regulars, Dusky-blue Groundstreak, Gray Hairstreak and Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak.

Then there was the not so pretty Lantana Scrub-Hairstreak.  It's been a good year for them.

And then the very flashy Silver-banded Hairstreak.

And a cute little Clytie Ministreak in a weird pebbly form.

Number seven on the day was another butterfly found the day before, a Red-crescent Scrub-Hairstreak.  

They have been common up on Brushline Road but this was my first at the NBC in a couple of years.

I wasn't finding anything else so I headed down to the old gardens when several people were looking at a Great purple Hairstreak in the jasmine tree, #8 for the day.

I wandered off a ways and heard the cry off in the distance that something good had been found.  I ran over to find a group looking at a White Scrub-Hairstreak.  I saw my first just a couple of weeks ago.

I did a lot of searching for number ten but it wasn't to be.  I did get to see this Giant White over at Bentsen.