Any other December this would be considered a pretty fantastic day. But this year it's ho-humm. Same old stuff. I was telling Chris Balboni and Terry Mortier how spoiled we are. They concurred. After a two week absence, Ruby-spotted Swallowtails were back.
The cry "Malachite on the bait log!" usually brings people running. With most of the visiting butterfly watchers gone, this one fed in peace.
Here's a fresh male Mexican Bluewing. Not many of these guys around lately.
Yesterday's pristine Band-celled Sister now has a bite missing from the hind wings. It's a dangerous world out there.
A formerly rare Mexican Crescent was on the tiny Tridax patch.
I am not a photographer. I set my camera ISO from 400 to 1600, depending on light, and shift it into P Mode and let the old Canon 7D Mk II do all the thinking. RAW? What the hell is that? It's JPEG all the way. This works OK most of the time. But she really stuggles with black and red as in a Red Rim. The black makes it want to open for more light and then it doesn't know what to do with the red. So here's pre and post editing. I don't love it.
I really didn't like what I was seeing on the back of my camera while in the field. So I desparately switched to C1 mode. I don't know what is stored in that setting but it actually gave me a pretty realsitic color. How about that!
Up front there were both Florida and Giant Whites.
Julias have been hard to come by this fall.
I walked the ditch a couple of times hoping for the Malicious (Northern Faceted) Skipper but had to settle for a Potrillo (Caballo) Skipper.
It was a really good December day with 61 species. Usually we've had some cold weather by now and species totals are much lower. A cool front comes in today. But it's only supposed to drop into the 50's. Full steam ahead!
Pipevine Swallowtail 1
- Ruby-spotted Swallowtail 2
- Florida White 1
- Checkered White 2
- Giant White 1
- Orange Sulphur 1
- Southern Dogface 3
- Cloudless Sulphur 1
- Large Orange Sulphur 8
- Lyside Sulphur 6
- Tailed Orange 2
- Little Yellow 6
- Marius Hairstreak 1
- Gray Hairstreak 1
- Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 3
- Dusky-blue Groundstreak 3
- Western Pygmy-Blue 1
- Ceraunus Blue 6
- Reakirt's Blue 2
- Fatal Metalmark 2
- Red-bordered Pixie 6
- American Snout 20
- Gulf Fritillary 6
- Julia Heliconian 1
- Zebra Heliconian 3
- Mexican Fritillary 8
- Bordered Patch 4
- Texan Crescent 3
- Pale-banded Crescent 2
- Vesta Crescent 1
- Phaon Crescent 12
- American Lady 1
- Red Admiral 10
- Common Buckeye 1
- White Peacock 3
- Malachite 1
- Band-celled Sister 1
- Mexican Bluewing 2
- Common Mestra 1
- Red Rim 2
- Tropical Leafwing 8
- Empress Leilia 5
- Tawny Emperor 8
- Monarch 5
- Queen 40
- Soldier 2
- White-striped Longtail 2
- Brown Longtail 3
- Potrillo Skipper 1
- White Checkered-Skipper 8
- Tropical Checkered-Skipper 8
- Laviana White-Skipper 8
- Clouded Skipper 10
- Southern Skipperling 2
- Fiery Skipper 8
- Whirlabout 2
- Sachem 1
- Common Mellana 1
- Eufala Skipper 6
- Purple-washed Skipper 1
- Mexican Crescent 1
