Rio Grande Valley Butterflies: Amazing day at Bentsen and NBC, 7/5/16

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Amazing day at Bentsen and NBC, 7/5/16

The past couple of days there been a lot of good butterflies seen between Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State Park and the National Butterfly Center. I finally made it over to Bentsen this morning hoping to see the Erato Heliconian and there was john Rosford. And he was filming two Erato Heliconians! I think it's the first time there has ever been more than one of these at a time here in the USA. Unfortunately I missed my photo opp.

The other thing I wanted to see was the Rosita Patch and I found it up high in the Wright's Catclaw. Valley lifer #201 for me.

Two Clench's Greenstreaks were reported yesterday and I thought I found one but it turned out to be a Telea Hairstreak.

And then I did find a greenstreak but I'm not sure if it's a Clench's or a Tropical Greenstreak. Hard to tell what the color is on the frons but it almost looks green which would be Tropical.

And then there were two magnificent Ruddy Daggerwings.

And plenty of Banded Peacocks, this one mourning the death of a Gulf Fritillary.

After an hour and a half I ran over to NBC and immediately found the Silver Emperor. They found theirs here the same day I found the one at Santa Ana.

There target here at the National Butterfly Center were an Amazon Darner dragonfly and more Rosita Patches. So I spent a couple of hours on the Hackberry Trail and in the Ditch. I ran into Mike Rickard and we soon found a Rosita Patch.