National Butterfly Center, 11/18/25

The Texas Butterfly Festival has come and gone but new butterfly watchers are arriving in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas almost daily.  The assemblage of amatuer lepidopteristsa and warm south wind from Mexico results in lots of butterflies being seen in the RGV.  Last I saw yesterday the running species count for the month of November at the National Butterfly Center was at 125.  Amazing!  There have been no new records or mega finds but lots of good stuff is being found by those out plying the trails.

I've been taking it easy and trying not to get burned out.  Consequently I have missed a lot of the good stuff but I'm not complaining.  Here's a little of what I've seen the past few days starting with yesterday's Guatemalan Cracker.

I ran over yesterday hoping for the Hoary Skipper but I missed it.  So I had to glean from left over Glazed Pellicia, White-patched Skipper and Red-bordered Pixies.

Finally we are seeing a few Julia's Skippers.

The male Silver emperor was putting on a show.  Where's the blue?  You just have to change your angle!  Blue coloration of birds and butterflies are often caused by by microscopic structural reflections and not blue pigment.

Malachites are occuring daily.

I pointed visiting birders to this Guava Skipper.  They were grateful.

Mexican Bluewings have been in short supply.

But not the rare Mexican Crescent.

Here's the morning Ruby-spotted Swallowtail.  We have seen nearly a dozen this fall.

As I was leaving one more butterfly caught my eye.  Woops.  Look at those antennae.  This is the diurnal White-tipped Black Moth.

With good wind and good observers in the field, we're bound to get something remarkable in the coming weeks.

Rockport Lifers, 11/7/25

There are still plenty of butterfly species I have not seen in the great nation of Texas.  One of my goals this year was to run up to the Coastal Bend and look for False Duskywing.  We are supposed to get them in the Rio Grande Valley but I've never seen one.  Enter Craig Robson.  This past spring I had the chance to meet Craig and his lovely wife at the National Butterfly Center and even got them a lifer Angled Leafwing.  At the time I thought his name sounded familiar.  Later I realized he was the author of Birds of Southeast Asia and many articles I had read in the Oriental Birding Club publication Birding Asia.  He had recently entered a records into iNaturalist of False Duskywing and Salt Marsh Skipper from the Rockport Area.

After an uneventful day butterflywise yesterday, I decided to run up to Rockport.  I would still have Saturday to look for butterflies before the approaching cold front.  I arrived at the Linda Castro Wildlife Area about 10 am and started working the flowers.  Plenty of butterflies but northing noteworthy  A sit at one of the drips turned up a late Tennessee Warbler.

Best butterfly was a White-striped Longtail.

After lunch I did another round of the trails.  Here's a nice Pipevine Swallowtail.

This was the best spot for False Duskywing on the Coastal Bend and I was coming up empty.  I was going to give it a few more minutes and then go to the Salt Marsh Skipper spot when I got a brief glympse of what looked to be a small spreadwing skipper.  It was a beat up False Duskywing.

Now I headed to the Cove Harbor trail just south of Rockport for Salt Marsh Skipper.  I arrived to find a boardwalk runing into the marsh.  But nearby flowers by a brushy spot attracted my attention.  I checked them out and quickly found a little golden Panoquina.  "Wow that was easy" I thought.  I fired a few shots but was disappointed when I looked at the images.  It was a Panoquina alright, but the spots were wrong. One dot and a space and two more dots.... it was a darn Obsure Skipper like we have on the salt marshes of Cameron County.

I found several more but not the Salt Marsh skipper.  Maybe they like it wetter.  So I walked the muddy edges and only saw more Obscure Skippers.  I walked back over to the flowers thinking I might have to walk the boardwalk.  One more skipper landed on a betony mist flower and this time the spot was right.  I got my lifer Salt Marsh Skipper.

It was nice to get these two lifer skippers that I had nelected for so long.   On my way home the Discord app sounded.  Terry Mortier and Chris Balboni had just found a strange long tailed skipper along the Retama Wall.  ID was being debated but consensus quickly settled on Eight-spotted Skippper.  That's one I've wanted to see for a long time.  But no one else saw it.  Something to do tomorrow!

A New Tiger Beetle for Hidalgo County, 11/6/25

I finally got caught up with my photos and iNaturalist stuff for the Texas Butterfly Festival so it was time to run over to the National Butterfly Center and take advantage of the beaurtiful weather and look for rare butterflies.  I really wanted to check that big crucita patch on the south 70 acres.  As I drove back I checked a few crucita and found nothing interesting.  Then as a I approached the little pond I noticed it was very low with mudflats around it.  Ode guru Ben Schwartz had found some good dragonflies here a few weeks ago.  Maybe I could find something.  Maybe even a tiger beetle.  I don't have any for the park.

I walked a round the dry mud and trampled sedge.  The local deer and javelina have been having fun here.  Dragonflies were all common stuff.  The huge Common Green Darners were mating down in the sedge and their wings beating against the blades of grass startled me at first.  Rattlesnakes?

Then a black tiger beetle on the damp mud.  I expected the common S-banded Tiger Beetle.  Wrong!  I got lots of photos of this first iNaturalist record of Punctured Tiger Beetle.  It's one of the most common tiger beetle species across the eastern three fourths of the USA.  There are single iNat records from Starr and Cameron Counties.  But the field guide shows it occuring across all of Texas.  I was hoping to find one some day.

The rest of the afternoon was just a replay of the last few days.  Good stuff but the same stuff.  Here's the Malachite.

Up front the fire bush (Hamelia patens) was still hopping with hairstreaks.  The Yojoa and White Scrub-Hairstreaks were still popular with the visiting butterfly watchers.

And the Marius Hairstreak.

And a coy little Dusky-blue Groundstreak.

I checked the crucita in the mesquite woodland hoping for Terry's Starred Skipper.  This sharp Guava Skipper was not adequate consolation.

Another good day!  Tomorrow I'm thinking about a run up to Rockport for a couple of lifers.  We'll see how I feel when I wake up.

Texas Butterfly Festival, 11/2-4/25

Terry Mortier and I were assigned to lead the newbie group for this year's Texas Butterfly Festival sponsored by the North American Butterfly Association.  Actually we volunteered for this group thinking they might be a little more laid back than the hardcore butterfly listers, but they proved to be enthusiastic and made us work hard.  Our little group of a dozen wound up with over eighty species for the three days.

Day 1 National Butterfly Center:  Our group met at the entrance to the visitors center for the National Butterfly Center and we found a Red-bordered Pixie right off the bat.  It was an good omen for the festival.

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We walked the sunken garden and checked a few baitlogs.  It was a beautiful morning and we were seeing lots of stuff though all common species.  We talked about how to separate the Soldier from the common Queen.

Then we drove to the back seventy to check out the river.  I was told of a big crucita patch down the trail from the river overlook and we found plenty of butterflies there.  Desert Checkered-Skipper was a good find.

Then a rare Erichson's White-Skipper.  This has been a good fall for them.

Then our best butterfly of the morning, a flashy Zilpa Logtail.  It was my first of the year.

Skinner's (Coyote) Cloudywing was another good find.

We ate our lunch under the palapa in the south garden.  Our trip was scheduled to check out a number of locations in the Midvalley, but I decided we would stay at the butterfly park because we were doing so well.  Driving time comes out of butterfly time.  Also the group wanted a Mexican Bluewing and I thought this was a our best chance. We were rewarded with a super good looking rare Silver Emperor.  At the right angle the wing flashes a brilliant violet blue.

We finally found a Mexican Bluewing in the ditch but could never see the beautiful blue dorsal surface of the wings.  I tried flashing it with my camera and it moved a little but never opened up.

Wandering north we found the crucita patch where Terry had found a rare Starred Skipper a few days earlier.  We got a nice Brown-banded Skipper.

And our first Tailed Orange.

We then got word of a really good butterfly.  Someone had found a Yojoa Scrub-airstreak in the firebush in the sunken garden.  It's been ten or more years since I have seen one.  And this one was a beauty!

We finished the day with a very respectable 68 species.

Day 2 West Up River:  We made the long drive to the Falcon Area first stopping in Falcon Heights at Berry Nall's place where we were rewarded with dozens of migrating Monarchs nectaring on the blooming chomonque.  After a Monarchless fall, the recent stong cold front brought many to the Rio Grande Valley on their way to the mountains of Michoacan in west Mexico.

Not a lot else was going on so we checked out the butterfly Garden at Falcon State Park.  It's been hot and dry up there and not a lot was blooming but we still dug out a few things like our only Purple-washed Skipper.

And a cooperative Skinner's (Coyote) Cloudywing.

We ate our lunch, enjoying the beautiful fall weather, and then made our way down to the lake shore.  As we got out of our cars, I started to tell the group about tiger beetles, when I saw a small one run though the grass at my feet.  What the...  Shaupp's Tiger Beetle!  According to iNaturalist this is a first for Zapata County.  I taught the group about these tiny ferocious predators but only a few seemed interested.  It was find of the day for me.

Ocellated Tiger Beetles were running all over the beach.

We discussed the low levels of Falcon Lake and the fact we were parked about forty feet below the normal lake levels.  Where are the two million people of the Lower Rio Grande Valley going to get their water?  Mexico is as dry as we are.

Searching nearby marsh fleabane turned up common Phaon Cresents and Ceraunus Blues but nor much else so we ran over to the bird beeding station at Salineno where the winter hosts keep a small butterfly garden.  Baitlogs attracted Tropical Leafwings and Empress Leilias.

 

A Heiroglyphic Moth hanging in a hackberry tree got the group's attention.

We found a nice Common Mestra and a Red-bordered Metalmark.

But the real crowd pleasers were the copulating Texas Unicorn Mantises.

At this point the goup, still feeling the effects of yesterday's walking, were about done for.  We only saw 38 species of butterflies but they seemed happy.

Day 3 East Down River

Our goal for today was to head east to Resaca de la Palma State Park and the Gaytan's residence in Cameron County to pick up Blue Metalmarks and hopefully Mexican Bluewings.  The gracious host soon had us on butterflies like this Mimosa Skipper which was new for our group.

Eventually we got tis beat up Mexican Bluewing to open for us.  I wanted a better one.

Then I found a fresh one.  But it only gave me poor views and then flew over the fence and I could not find it.  Apparently it had flown back to the other side and I could hear our group oohing and awing.  It put on a show and they were happy!

One down.  Now for the Blue Metalmarks.  At about 11am several popped out in the front yard.

Pressure was off and we had out blue butterflies.  So how about a green one?  Silver-banded hairstreak.

Then I found them a sharp little Red-crescent Scrub-Hairstreak.

Off to nearby Resaca de la Palma State Park for lunch and a few more lifers for the group.  A Band-celled Sister teased us while we ate lunch.

The garden was dry but still gave us a few more Blue Metalmarks,

And our first Great Southern White.

And first Pale-banded Crescent.

Then a walk though the tall brush of the Ebony Trail gave us more Mexican Bluewings.

And another of our targets, the local Boisduval's Yellow.

Well everyone was happy so we left early for a reported Malachite at the national Butterfly Center.  But not before one last surprise bid us "adieux." on the Ebony Trail.  Red Rim!  It flew waiste high around the group and then landed in front of us.  Glassberg describes it as a chocolate cupcake with strawberry icing.

When we arrived at the National Butterfly Center not many of our begginers group were interested in the White-scrub Hairstreak.  But Terry and I raced out into the garden for it after saying good bye to our fun bunch.

Then I cheated and drove to the back for the Malachite.

A fun three days with over 80 species!  Looking good for the coming weeks of rarity season.