Quinta Mazatlan, 10/29/24

An impromtu run over to Quinta Mazatlan turned into a pretty darn good butterfly day.  The private garden just outside the entrance gave up its usual Mexican Fritillary.

The crucita by the entrace to the beautiful old visitor's center hosted a worn Julia.  It is often called the Julia Heliconian but it is not a Heliconius.

After checking in I hit the little garden just outside and things started getting good.  I have never seen so many Pale-banded Crescents.  They have been hard to find this year.

A male Red-borded Metalmark showed off his scarlet underwings.

Then I found a good one.  This is the first Potrillo Skipper I have seen this year.  The usual spot at the Old Cemetery at Santa Ana NWR has failed to produce any.  Nick Grishin's new name is Caballo Skipper.  Hard to keep up with all the new splits from the recent DNA work.  

And then a Giant White made a brief appearance.

I checked the plumbago patch where the Mexican Violetear hung out a few years ago and found this sharp Two-barred Flasher.  Nick Grishin has split this one off and is calling it Qian's Flasher.

Lots of Mourful Duskywings around, each one different.

A walk back to the Ebony Grove Turned up a massive patch of crucita.  McAllen had some heavy rain in August that other local spots missed.  Here I found both Long-tailed Skipper and Brown Longtail.

Good grass skipper diversity nectaring on the crucita.  Here are Ocola, Sachem and Fiery Skippers.

A return to the little garden by the visitors center gave me my best butterfly.  Curve-winged Metalmark has been nonexistent in the RGV this year.

One last loop around the park turned up a Silver-banded Hairstreaak.

Finally, after seeing a half dozen during the day, I got a decent Zebra Heliconian shot back at the private garden where I started.  This really is a Heliconius (for now) but some call it the Zebra Longwing.  In the birding world, The American Ornithological Society does a good job of keeping bird names uniform in the New World.  But lepidopterists are a petty, divided bunch with a frustrating lack of uniformity in common names and even species recognition.  Oh well.....

Here's today list of 44 species

• Pipevine Swallowtail 1
• Giant Swallowtail 6
• Giant White 1
• Southern Dogface 1
• Cloudless Sulphur 3
• Large Orange Sulphur 6
• Lyside Sulphur 1
• Little Yellow 3
• Silver-banded Hairstreak 1
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 2
• Cassius Blue 1
• Red-bordered Metalmark 2
• Red-bordered Pixie 1
• Curve-winged Metalmark 1
• American Snout 1
• Gulf Fritillary 1
• Julia Heliconian 1
• Zebra Heliconian 5
• Mexican Fritillary 1
• Bordered Patch 3
• Texan Crescent 1
• Pale-banded Crescent 25
• Vesta Crescent 1
• Pearl Crescent 1
• White Peacock 5
• Mexican Bluewing 1
• Common Mestra 4
• Tawny Emperor 2
• Queen 5
• Long-tailed Skipper 1
• Brown Longtail 2
• Two-barred Flasher 1
• Potrillo Skipper 2
• Sickle-winged Skipper 8
• Mournful Duskywing 8
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 2
• Laviana White-Skipper 4
• Clouded Skipper 3
• Fiery Skipper 15
• Whirlabout 2
• Sachem 5
• Eufala Skipper 3
• Ocola Skipper 6
• Purple-washed Skipper 1

Definite Patch on Brushline Rd, 10-24-24

I spent yesterday checking out the Teniente Tract of the Lower Rio Grande Valley NWR in western Willacy County.  A week ago I checked out CR 30 and found there were still some flowers up there but road improvement cramped my style.  A constant progression of large trucks hauling caliche raised dust and interferred with my peaceful bug watching.  So I returned yesterday and found things much more peaceful.  Problem was that no rain and daily temperatures in the 90s had fried most of the flowers and not much was going on.  There were quite a few Desert Checkered-Skippers and two Erichson's White-Skippers were nice but other than that it was just a few common species.

So I ran over to CR 20 and found more flowers but fewer butterflies.  What to do?  Well I decied to drive over to Brushline Road and go up to Sal del Rey and look for tiger beetles.  Then I remebered a patch of crucita a half mile up Brushline and there I hit the jackpot.  This Definite Patch is the first I've seen in Hidalgo County.  Glassberg shows them ocurring thoughout south Texas and across the Transpecos but I've only seen them at a couple of spots on Cameron County.  I think this is my 221st species for the county.

Not far away was another Erichson's White-Skipper.

And the uncommon Turk's-Cap White-Skipper.

A Desert Checkered-Skipper showed the plain under hind wing with it characteristic dots.

Dorantes and White-striped Longtails.

It's been a good fall for White-patched Skippers.

This pale Sickle-winged Skipper caused me to think about Pale Sicklewing.

Dainty Sulphurs are always more common in the brush country.

I like this photo from earlier in the afternoon.  A Cloudless Sulphur and Southern Dogface well sucking at salt on the western end of La Sal Vieja where it crosses CR 30.

The day ended with tiger beetles at Sal del Rey.  Last week I found five species on the damp sand where water overflows from the freshwater cienega.  Today it was only three species; salt loving White-cloaked and Cream-edged Tiger Beetles

                                     

and the mud loving S-banded Tiger Beetle.

If we don't get rain soon it will be hard to find anything up there.