Progreso Lakes, 2/28/20

Despite the past two mornings dipping into the 30's there have been butterflies about and Mike Rickard recorded 65 species at the National Butterfly Center yesterday.  So I put a little effort into our Progreso Lakes yard today and was rewarded with 36 species.  Star of the day was our first Coyote Cloudywing, butterfly #120.  Coyote Cloudywing is pretty common out west at Falcon State Park but hard to get in eastern Hidalgo County.  So I wasn't sure how long it would take to record the species in our yard.  This was a really fresh one that only hung around for about a minute.

I was photographing this White-striped Longtail when the coudywing popped in.

There were both Mournful and Funerial Duskywings.

It's been a while since I've seen any Sachems.  We had two today.

We don't get Orange Sulphur very often.

This Gray Hairstreak was fresh and nicely marked.

Otherwise it was just a lot of common stuff today.  So here's a photo of a Red-bordered Pixie from a few day ago.

Here's today's list.

• Checkered White 2
• Orange Sulphur 1
• Southern Dogface 2
• Cloudless Sulphur 2
• Large Orange Sulphur 2
• Little Yellow 3
• Sleepy Orange 2
• Gray Hairstreak 1
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 1
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 2
• Texan Crescent 3
• Vesta Crescent 4
• Phaon Crescent 3
• Red Admiral 1
• White Peacock 1
• Carolina Satyr 4
• Monarch 2
• Queen 4
• White-striped Longtail 1
• Brown Longtail 4
• Coyote Cloudywing 1
• Mournful Duskywing 1
• Funereal Duskywing 1
• White Checkered-Skipper 8
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 6
• Laviana White-Skipper 3
• Julia's Skipper 1
• Fawn-spotted Skipper 1
• Clouded Skipper 3
• Southern Skipperling 3
• Fiery Skipper 5
• Whirlabout 1
• Southern Broken-Dash 2
• Sachem 2
• Common Mellana 1
• Eufala Skipper 3

Resaca de la Palma, 2/13/20

This has been a really warm winter.  But it's also been very dry so butterflies have been in short supply.  This morning I ran over to Resaca de la Palma State Park in Cameron County to do some birding and got pleasantly distracted by butterflies.  Four Blue Metalmarks stole the show.

The Boisduval's Yellow were hard to photograph as usual but I did get a shot.

The Boisduval's Yellow and Orange-barred Sulphur at two species that are hard to see in Hidalgo County but appear in our yard at Progreso Lakes.  I think Chistmas Senna (Senna pendula) is the common denominator.

This Mexican Bluewing was hanging around the bird feeding station.  I missed the Band-celled Sister that was also seen there.

Brown-banded Skipper was a nice surprise but there's a lot of Barbados Cherry, which is the host plant, at Resaca so I guess it's not such a surprise.

Red-bordered Metalmark.

Let's hope we get some rain.

• Cloudless Sulphur 2
• Large Orange Sulphur 1
• Lyside Sulphur 1
• Boisduval's Yellow 2
• Little Yellow 3
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 1
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 3
• Red-bordered Metalmark 1
• Red-bordered Pixie 4
• American Snout 3
• Vesta Crescent 1
• Phaon Crescent 2
• American Lady 1
• Band-celled Sister 1
• Mexican Bluewing 1
• Carolina Satyr 5
• Brown Longtail 1
• Sickle-winged Skipper 3
• Brown-banded Skipper 1
• Funereal Duskywing 1
• White Checkered-Skipper 3
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 8
• Laviana White-Skipper 3
• Turk's-cap White-Skipper 1
• Julia's Skipper 1
• Clouded Skipper 3
• Fiery Skipper 3
• Whirlabout 3
• Southern Broken-Dash 4
• Eufala Skipper 2