Yturria Brush, 6/2/14

This morning I ran over to Yturria Brush tract of the Lower Rio Grande NWR to look for the Varied Buntings seen by Bill Supulski and John Rosford last week.  Well I struck out on Varied Buntings but I saw some great bugs.  One of my first butterflies for the morning was this Nysa Roadside-Skipper.

I checked out the checkered-skippers hoping to find a Desert Checkered-Skipper and eventually saw several of them.  The plain underwing with the costal double dot is a good field mark.

White Checkered-Skippers were also common.

I saw a skipper fly by with a lot of white on the upperside and figured it was just another White Checkered Skipper.  But when I focused my camera on it, I was surprised to see it was an Erichson's White-Skipper, only my second ever.  It was just a tiny bit larger than the checkered skippers.

Then there was a Turk's Cap White-Skipper.

The interesting skippers just kept a coming.  I saw three Texas Powdered-Skippers.

Here's a sharp Common Sootywing.

These two mating long-horned beetles are pretty amazing.  I will spend some some on Bug Guide to try to ID them.  (Well I did some research and these are South Texas Bumelia Borers Plinthocoelium schwarzi)

This looks like some kind of blister beetle.  (I did some more research and this blister beetle is Epicauta immaculata.)

I can't refuse the photogenic Halloween Pennants.

And I finally saw my first RGV Four-striped Leaftail.  I saw several but getting a photo wasn't easy.

I missed getting a photo of one of the best butterflies, Two-barred Flasher.  I shall return.