Eastern Tailed-Blue at NBC, 5/8/15

A warm, windy day was in the weather forecast so I ran over to the National Butterfly Center to what surprises might be in store.  I got a good one.  After sorting through tons of common butterflies, I found a small pale spotted blue that turned out to be an Eastern Tailed-Blue.  Glassberg's books shows this common butterfly is found north, south, east and west of the RGV but missing from the plains of deep south Texas.  It was certainly one I had not expected but I guess they've been seen down here before.

Another nice butterfly was my first Zilpa Longtail for the year.  It's kind of beat up/

Max told me a Julia Heliconian had been hanging around.  It took a while but I found her.

Lantana Scrub-Hairstreak seems to be everywhere this year.

Here's a nice looking Dusky-blue Groundstreak.  Most of them were down in the ditch behind the bird feeding station.

The South Texas Satyrs I saw a few weeks ago all  had tiny to nonexistent spots.  The three I saw today were back to normal.  Is this seasonal or is another species involved?

I hope I'm right in calling this a Rounded Metalmark.

Here's my longest list of the year, 48 species.

• Black Swallowtail 3
• Giant Swallowtail 2
• Checkered White 15
• Great Southern White 8
• Giant White 1
• Cloudless Sulphur 2
• Large Orange Sulphur 5
• Lyside Sulphur 60
• Little Yellow 8
• Sleepy Orange 1
• Dainty Sulphur 15
• Gray Hairstreak 8
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 20
• Lantana Scrub-Hairstreak 1
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 8
• Cassius Blue 1
• Ceraunus Blue 3
• Reakirt's Blue 25
• Eastern Tailed-Blue 1
• Rounded Metalmark 1
• American Snout 10
• Julia Heliconian 1
• Bordered Patch 20
• Elada Crescent 2
• Texan Crescent 10
• Vesta Crescent 1
• Phaon Crescent 100
• Pearl Crescent 8
• American Lady 1
• Red Admiral 1
• Empress Leilia 1
• Tawny Emperor 6
• Carolina Satyr 3
• Queen 8
• Zilpa Longtail 1
• Texas Powdered-Skipper 1
• White Checkered-Skipper 25
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper10
• Laviana White-Skipper 6
• Common Sootywing 3
• Julia's Skipper 3
• Fawn-spotted Skipper 6
• Clouded Skipper 8
• Southern Skipperling 8
• Fiery Skipper 2
• Whirlabout 1
• Southern Broken-Dash 1
• Eufala Skipper 8