Hermit Skipper at Progreso Lakes, 9/14/17

Wow!  What a day!  It was a bit windy this morning so I decided to work in our butterfly garden and enjoy the breeze before the heat turned on.  After two hours of digging up grass along the edges, I decided I was about worn out and would check out the butterflies.  Not much happening in the garden so I checked out our very productive Purple Duranta.  A Pipevine Swallowtail played in the wind and then I saw something white with dark edges.  Female Florida White!  Yard butterfly #74.

I had a difficult time with the Florida White as it played in the wind and refused to stay put.  And then suddenly this big brown spreadwing skipper lands right in front of me.  I knew what it was since everyone seemed to be posting photos of Hermit Skippers on Face Book lately.  A species I had chased several times and failed to see, Hermit Skipper was one of my nemesis species.  This was RGV butterfly #208 for me.

Another Yellow Angled-Sulphur was a sharp male.

I saw two Painted Ladies today.

Meanwhile the butterfly garden on the other side of the yard was picking up with two White-patched Skippers.

And a Mimosa Skipper.  With the river nearby and ditches with the thorny pink mimosa, I bet I will see more of these guys in the future.

And a Sickle-winged Skipper.

And then another Florida White,this one a little scruffier than the other but more cooperative.

Finished the day with thirty species.

• Pipevine Swallowtail 1
• Giant Swallowtail 1
• Florida White 2
• Yellow Angled-Sulphur 1
• Cloudless Sulphur 5
• Large Orange Sulphur 2
• Lyside Sulphur 1
• Little Yellow 4
• Mimosa Yellow 1
• Western Pygmy-Blue 1
• Ceraunus Blue 3
• American Snout 2
• Gulf Fritillary 1
• Painted Lady 2
• White Peacock 1
• Brown Longtail 2
• Mimosa Skipper 1
• Sickle-winged Skipper 1
• Hermit Skipper 1
• White-patched Skipper 2
• Mournful Duskywing 1
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 6
• Laviana White-Skipper 2
• Fawn-spotted Skipper 1
• Clouded Skipper 4
• Southern Skipperling 1
• Fiery Skipper 1
• Southern Broken-Dash 1
• Celia's Roadside-Skipper 1
• Eufala Skipper 1

Yellow-angled Sulphurs at Progreso Lakes, 9-13-17

Mike Rickard has seen about a jazillion Yellow-angled Sulphurs this year while it's been eons since I've seen one.  But while I was birding in the yard this morning I saw a large pale sulphur that seemed to have a slower, stiffer wing beat and I thought.....hmmmmm.  That could be an angled-sulphur. Turned out it was a female Yellow-angled Sulphur.  A first for our yard.

Then it seemed to disappear and after lunch I checked the purple duranta again and the Yellow Angled-Sulphur was back.  Except it was a male!

Maybe the shift of winds to the south had something to do with it.  Our normal SE wind blows from Progreso, Mexico across the Rio Grande where there is not a lot of butterflies.  But a south wind blows across a couple of hundred acres of Lower Rio Grande NWR land

Progreso Lakes Yard, 9/10/17

Nothing exciting but I had some nice photos yesterday so I thought I would make a blog entry. Finally got some good Guava Skipper photos from our yard.

Got our first Long-tailed Skipper which is yard butterfly #73.  Always need to double check these guys to see that they are not something rare.

Double-dotted Skipper continues to be regular in the yard.  Not sure what the host plant is but they sure like the purple Duranta.

Fawn-spotted Skipper likes to feed early in the morning and hides in the shade the rest of the day.

My second time to find a Mimosa Skipper in the purple Duranta.

• Giant Swallowtail 1
• Cloudless Sulphur 5
• Large Orange Sulphur 1
• Lyside Sulphur 1
• Little Yellow 6
• Ceraunus Blue 2
• American Snout 1
• Phaon Crescent 1
• White Peacock 1
• Queen 1
• Guava Skipper 3
• Long-tailed Skipper 1
• Brown Longtail 2
• Mimosa Skipper 1
• Mournful Duskywing 2
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 6
• Laviana White-Skipper 3
• Fawn-spotted Skipper 1
• Clouded Skipper 6
• Double-dotted Skipper 2
• Southern Skipperling 1
• Fiery Skipper 1
• Whirlabout 2
• Southern Broken-Dash 3
• Eufala Skipper 3