Progreso Lakes yard, 8/31/20

We haven't had any rain for four weeks but hot southerly wind blew up some new butterflies today here at Progreso Lakes.  I saw this Orange-barred Sulphur for only a few seconds.  

This Florida White is first I've seen since Spring.

I caught a glimpse of our fourth Ornythion Swallowtail of the summer and latter found it perched in our brush patch out of the wind.

The much more common Western Giant Swallowtail is superficially similar and also brighter yellow.

Here's one of two White-striped Longtails.

I wonder if any of our Sickle-winged Skippers are laying eggs on our Colima.

This Common Mellana has been hanging around for about a week and picks a fight with every butterfly it sees.

This is only the third Mexican Bluewing I have seen in our yard.  It acted like it was laying eggs on our Vasey's Adelia.

It's been quite a while since we've had a Turk's-Cap White-Skipper.

There's a good chance of rain next wekend but it's gonna be tripple digits till then. 

• Ornythion Swallowtail 1
• Western Tiger Swallowtail 2
• Florida White 1
• Cloudless Sulphur 6
• Orange-barred Sulphur 1
• Large Orange Sulphur 10
• Lyside Sulphur 1
• Little Yellow 1
• Cassius Blue 6
• American Snout 50
• Bordered Patch 2
• White Peacock 2
• Mexican Bluewing 1
• Common Mestra 1
• Tropical Leafwing 1
• Tawny Emperor 6
• Monarch 6
• White-striped Longtail 2
• Brown Longtail 1
• Sickle-winged Skipper 2
• White-patched Skipper 1
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 1
• Laviana White-Skipper 10
• Turk's-cap White-Skipper 1
• Clouded Skipper 5
• Whirlabout 4
• Common Mellana 1
• Celia's Roadside-Skipper 1

An Invasion of Gold-spotted Agunas, 8/3/20

On August 2 Ernest Herrera found a Gold-spotted Aguna at his home near Mission.  We usually get one or two every year in the Rio Grande Valley but they're still pretty rare and always a nice surprise.  So I was shocked the next day to find three of them in our yard!  We had one previously a couple of years ago.  What's even more amazing is that on the 4th, Ernest found two more at Quinta Mazatlan in McAllen.  And then Juan Chavez found two more at his home in Edinberg.  Obviously Gold-spotted Agunas are breeding somewhere not very far away.  I bet more of them show up.  Here's some photos from our yard.

The first two were in our blooming Tenaza.  But then I found another large skipper in the Duranta that didn't seem to have a white band.  I was hoping for Broken Silverdrop.  But after looking at the photos, the white band was just worn and it was a third Gold-spotted Aguna.

Well that made for a pretty good day but that's not all.  There was a Brown-banded Skipper laying eggs on a Barbados cherry; first one for the year.

And then this beat up Ruddy Daggerwing dropped in.  I wonder if it was the same one from last week.

The day started with this female Yellow Angled Sulphur.

These two Tropical Leafwings were getting chummy.

The day before on 8/2/20 we had this nice fat female Orang-barred Sulphfur laying eggs on the Senna.

And to get all caught up, yesterday 8/5 our brush patch was briefly visited by this fresh Zebra Heliconian.  They are pretty common but it was only our second.  I think they probably just blow through and I miss them.