A nice surprise at the end of the trail at the pour off was my first Chisos Skipperling. It was sitting on a wet rock in the splash zone from the water pouring over the cliff from over a hundred feet above. The slippery rocks and occasion pelting of water from above made getting a good photo of this rare butterfly difficult. It looks like it's ovipositing on the rock. What's up with that?
Additional butterflies in the dappled sunlight under the maples and oaks were Two-tailed Swallowtails, California Sister, Common Streaky-Skipper and Golden Banded-Skipper.
Walking back down the canyon, I saw several brown duskywings. As I've never walked this canyon in the spring this was my first Sleepy Duskywing Erynnis brizo.
I'm not so sure about this one but with the white spots on the forewing and the two spots on the under side of the hind wing I think it's a Rocky Mountain Duskywing Erynnis telemachus.
Saw this Rawson's Metalmark as I approached my car.
As I was driving about a half mile away from the trailhead I saw this little hairstreak flying around a big yucca. I got some photos and the best I could make of it was Red-lined Scrub-Hairstreak. But after posting the photos on Facebook both Martin Reid and Chris Durden (who co-authored the paper describing the species) say its the Big Bend Scrub-Hairstreak Strymon solitario. This local species uses the ground bromeliad Hectia texensis as a host plant and it was previously know as Bromiliad Scrub-Hairstreak which is a different species Strymon serapio. I hope I have this right.
Quite a day!
- Two-tailed Swallowtail 5
- Checkered White 20
- Southern Dogface 5
- Mexican Yellow 12
- Dainty Sulphur 3
- Great Purple Hairstreak 1
- Sandia Hairstreak 2
- Gray Hairstreak 1
- Reakirt's Blue 1
- Rawson's Metalmark 1
- Variegated Fritillary 5
- Bordered Patch 3
- Texan Crescent 3
- Vesta Crescent 5
- Red Admiral 1
- California Sister 1
- Golden Banded-Skipper 6
- Sleepy Duskywing 2
- Rocky Mountain Duskywing 1
- Funereal Duskywing 1
- Desert Checkered-Skipper 10
- Common Sootywing 10
- Chisos Skipperling 1
- Orange Skipperling 15
