Spring at National Butterfly Center, 3/5/26

Spring has sprung!  It is windy, dry and dusty in the Ruio Grande Valley of south Texas and trees are leafing out best then can despite the continuing drought.  The wind is screaming out of the south and the air is full of dust and pollen.  I'm itching all over, inside and out!  New arrivals today at the National Butterfly Center included this Florida White.  I think it's my first for the year.

Spreadwing skippers were abundant today.  Here's the first Sickle-winged Skipper I've seen in a while.

The four most common long-tailed Skippers popped in: Long-tailed Skipper (minus tails), Dorantes Longtail, White-striped Longtail and Brown Longtail.

And some of the little exotic spread-winged skippers:  Caballo Skipper, Common Streaky Skipper and Turk's-Cap White-Skipper.

Plenty of grass skippers too.  At least a half dozen Double-dotted skippers today.

Souther Broken-Dash has been numerous lately.

Here's a pair of cavorting Whirlabouts.

Finally got a Western Giant-Swallowtail.  Big butterflies ave been hard to come by,

An Elada Checkerspot was new but at the species' usual spot by the restrooms.  I am guessing this one hatched locally.  It's fun to speculate who is local and who blew in with the wind.

So I ran the Big Board species total up to 77 which is pretty good for five days into March.  Possible rain on the way!

• Giant Swallowtail 1
• Florida White 1
• Checkered White 1
• Southern Dogface 2
• Large Orange Sulphur 5
• Lyside Sulphur 3
• Little Yellow 5
• Mimosa Yellow 2
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 1
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 1
• Cassius Blue 2
• Ceraunus Blue 1
• Reakirt's Blue 1
• American Snout 12
• Gulf Fritillary 1
• Mexican Fritillary 1
• Bordered Patch 1
• Elada Checkerspot 1
• Texan Crescent 8
• Pale-banded Crescent 6
• Red Admiral 1
• Band-celled Sister 1
• Mexican Bluewing 1
• Common Mestra 3
• Tropical Leafwing 3
• Tawny Emperor 1
• Queen 1
• White-striped Longtail 2
• Long-tailed Skipper 1
• Dorantes Longtail 1
• Brown Longtail 1
• Coyote Cloudywing 1
• Potrillo Skipper 1
• Sickle-winged Skipper 1
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 10
• Desert Checkered-Skipper 1
• Laviana White-Skipper 6
• Turk's-cap White-Skipper 1
• Common Streaky-Skipper 1
• Julia's Skipper 1
• Fawn-spotted Skipper 1
• Clouded Skipper 6
• Double-dotted Skipper 6
• Southern Skipperling 2
• Fiery Skipper 2
• Whirlabout 4
• Southern Broken-Dash 6
• Sachem 2
• Common Mellana 2
• Mexican Crescent 2

Yturria Brush, 2/16/26

Recently Terry Mortier and Corrine McDonald each reported blooming Chomonque and a few butterflies at the Yturria Brush unit of the Lower Rio Grande Valley NWR west of La Joya so I thought it was time to make a visit.  I found the refuge extremely dry with many plants leafless.  A few were trying to sprout spring leaves and Huisachillo was starting to bloom.  As reported the Chomonques were in full bloom though looking ragged.  They had gotten enough rain last summer to pull off one last brave attempt to reproduce despite the dry fall and winter.  Though rather homely, this subtropical composite really attracts the butterflies.  Maybe because it's the only game in town.

Working the trail from the old parking lot by the freeway it didn't take long to find a Skinner's Cloudywing.

Chomonques are good at attracting hairstreaks but all I found were a few Gray Hairstreaks.

My targets for the day were Nysa Roadside-Skipper and Common Streaky Skipper.  I was hopeful when I spied a tiny brown butterfly flying low like a patrolling skipper.  Not my target but still pretty good, Texas Powdered Skipper.

Southern Dogfaces were out.

Then a couple more tiny brown guys.  Got my Nysa Roadside-Skipper!

My original plan was to go to the National Butterfly Center after lunch but things were going good at Yturria so I stayed for another perusal of the trail.  Another small brown skipper was feeding on Chomonque.  My first impression was another Texas Powdered Skipper but this one turned out to be a Caballo (the old name Potrillo is for the Caribbean taxon) Skipper.  First I've seen at Yturria.

Then a tiny black thing.  It's not every day you get a Common Sootywing at eye level.

Texan Crescents were a bit unexpected.

Variegated Fritillary is usually pretty common out in the desert.

It's hard to turn down a White-striped Longtail.

I didn't find the Common Streaky Skipper but still a good three hours with 22 species.

• Black Swallowtail 1
• Southern Dogface 10
• Cloudless Sulphur 1
• Lyside Sulphur 20
• Sleepy Orange 10
• Gray Hairstreak 3
• Reakirt's Blue 5
• American Snout 50
• Texan Crescent 8
• Vesta Crescent 3
• Phaon Crescent 1
• Empress Leilia 5
• Queen 1
• White-striped Longtail 1
• Coyote Cloudywing 1
• Potrillo Skipper 1
• Texas Powdered-Skipper 2
• Funereal Duskywing 1
• Laviana White-Skipper 1
• Common Sootywing 1
• Sachem 1
• Nysa Roadside-Skipper 2

National Butterfly Center, 2/12/26

I haven't posted in a few weeks.  We had a freeze here in the Lower Rion Grande Valley of south Texas with a couple of nights with 5-6 hours below 32F.  It wasn't a big freeze but it was enough to give a pretty good burn to some of the plants.  I would say maybe 10% of plants at the National Butterfly Center suffered some damage.  But we warmed right back up to the 80's and butterflies are starting to recover some.  Halfway through the month the NBC species total is 85 which is actually pretty good.  The main problem now is it is extremely dry with no rain in sight.

There were no major rarities on the day but two Brown-banded Skippers were unusual.

It was nice to see a Mexican Bluewing.  A pair were cavorting near their Vassey's Adelia host plant.

Little flowers attract little butterflies like this Western Pygmy Blue on Tridax.

The booming Elbow Bush also attracted tiny guys like Reakirt's blue and  Dusky-blue Groundstreak.

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I assumed the few smallish orange butterflies I was seeing were Sleepy Oranges, but the only one I photographed was a Tailed Orange.

There was another Caballo (AKA Potrillo) Skipper in the ditch below the blooming Azureum.  They tend to like shady places.

Common Sootywings have not been very common.

Terry Mortier from Wisconsin, who has been down in the Valley finding butterflies for the past four months, is off to Arizona.  We will miss his eyes in the field.  I may join him in a few weeks as I still need to see a number of the spring southwestern butterflies.

Last warm weather at the NBC, 1/22-23/26

We fought off winter a long time this fall here in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of south Texas, but yesterday it finally arrived in a fury and it's in the upper 30's as I write this.  We're supposed to have freezing temps the next two mornings so our fantastic fall butterfly season of 2025-26 may offically be over.  We have had a few cold cloudy days in the 50s so butterfly numbers have been knocked down but decent stuff was still showing during the past few warm days.  This friendly Banded Peacock has been a popular photographic subject at the National Butterfly Center.

The same patch of spring mist flower held a White Scrub-Hairstreak for several hours.

Mazan's Scallopwing is pretty uncommon at the NBC so this was a nice find by the palapa.  Twenty two minutes later I found a second at the Hackberry Trail crossover where the above two butterflies were found.  But later inspection of the photos found these two bugs to be the same butterfly.  So it had moved about 80 yards in those 22 minutes.  Pretty cool to document that movement.  The image differences are due to the old 7D Mk II struggling with exposures.  Or maybe it's the photographer's fault.

Terry Mortier found a Mexican Silverspot ovipositing on passion vine.  All I could find was this Zebra Longwing doing the same thing.

After a fall without Rounded Metalmark I finally found one.  At least that is my guess and the iNaturalist AI concurs.

Mexican Bluewings have been in short supply.  This looks like a freshly eclosed male.

My best find on the last warm day was this Falcate Skipper, my first for the new year.

It has been a good fall for Marius Hairstreaks.  This is what they typically look like.

But late in the afternoon we found this thing.  It as the gray eyes of the genus Rekoa, but seemed a little off.  The dark smudgey PM band had me thinking about Smudged Hairstreak Rekoa stagira.  But looking at photos on BOA it seems the white edges of the PM band are too bright and it has too many blue scales below the thecla and is more likely a boldly marked marius.

And finally last Sunday there was this dark, almost black grass skipper at Santa Ana NWR.  I saw it for only a few seconds.  I know of no regularly occuring grass skipper that is so dark and seemingly unmarked about.  I think it's a first US record for something.  Glassberg won't speculate.  I will try sending the photos to a few others.  There are several dark skipper possibilities to the south in Mexico.  But there may not be enough in the photos to make a positive ID.

They have us warming back to above 70 on Thursday.  We'll see.  It will be interesting to find who survives the cold.