I had stuff to do today but Mary Beth Stowe found a Mourning Cloak at the National Butterfly Center so I changed plans. I never found it but as it turned out it was a good day to be there ahead of the approaching cold front. The elbo bushes had quit blooming but white brush and baby bonnets took up the slack. Pride of place (I like this old British term) goes to this sharp little Ruddy Hairstreak. Males are easy to ID if you can see the orange upper wing surfce. Females are dull above and identical to Muted Hairstreak. The little guy was flashing orange!
Common Streaky Skippers have appeared out of nowhere. I saw three today.
Mazan's Scallopwing is not common at the NBC. Resaca de la Palma is a better place to find it.
My first Goatweed Leafwing for 2025.
This is most likely a female Orange Sulphur but I'm not sure how you could rule out Clouded Sulphur. I like the pink overtones.
Texan Crescents were out.
The other note worthy event today was the return of the native bees. Identification is a challenge but iNaturalist helps. I think this is the Texas Nomad Bee, a kleptoparasite of some of the little Andrena mining bees.
Female Texas Agopostemn is hairy compared to the other green sweat bees.
And I haven't figured out this dark little sweat bee. Not finding anything like it online.
Here's today's list of 35 species.
- Black Swallowtail 1
- Orange Sulphur 2
- Lyside Sulphur 6
- Little Yellow 3
- Sleepy Orange 1
- Silver-banded Hairstreak 1
- Gray Hairstreak 5
- Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 2
- Ruddy Hairstreak 1
- Dusky-blue Groundstreak 2
- Western Pygmy-Blue 1
- Reakirt's Blue 4
- Fatal Metalmark 3
- American Snout 10
- Bordered Patch 1
- Texan Crescent 3
- Phaon Crescent 5
- Pearl Crescent 1
- Red Admiral 6
- White Peacock 1
- Mexican Bluewing 2
- Tropical Leafwing 5
- Goatweed Leafwing 1
- Mazans Scallopwing 1
- Funereal Duskywing 2
- White Checkered-Skipper 8
- Laviana White-Skipper 2
- Common Streaky-Skipper 3
- Clouded Skipper 1
- Southern Skipperling 2
- Fiery Skipper 2
- Sachem 2
- Common Mellana 2
- Celia's Roadside-Skipper 2
- Eufala Skipper 1
