This past Saturday I was joined by Dick and Sherry Wilson and Chris Balboni at Santa Ana NWR for the NABA butterfly count. We had a very successful day finding 61 species including some pretty uncommon stuff. But Tipp Davenport found the best butterfly the next day, a Spot-celled Sister. The following afternoon I ran over and managed to find it in the brush west of the entrance kiosk as Tripp described. Four of these rare leps have been seen in the Valley this year and it was a lifer for me.
On the NABA count, this Erato Heliconian would normally drawn rave reviews but it was the fourth seen the year in the RGV and the fifth was seen the next day at Quinta Mazatlan.
There were six Ruddy Daggerwings and my first Many-banded Daggerwing of the year.
An amazing three species of green hairstreaks included Silver-banded Hairstreak, Tropical Greenstreak and this Telea Hairstreak.
I found the only Mimosa Skipper of the day way down on the tour road.
The morning started with this Gray Cracker in the butterfly garden.
- Giant Swallowtail 3
- Large Orange Sulphur 95
- Lyside Sulphur 49
- Tailed Orange 3
- Little Yellow 10
- Mimosa Yellow 21
- Telea Hairstreak 1
- Silver-banded Hairstreak 1
- Tropical Greenstreak 1
- Gray Hairstreak 6
- Clytie Ministreak 5
- Cassius Blue 2
- Ceraunus Blue 3
- Fatal Metalmark 8
- Rounded Metalmark 24
- Red-bordered Metalmark 27
- American Snout 700
- Gulf Fritillary 18
- Julia Heliconian 2
- Zebra Heliconian 4
- Erato Heliconian 1
- Variegated Fritillary 1
- Bordered Patch 5
- Crimson Patch 3
- Texan Crescent 9
- Pale-banded Crescent 22
- Phaon Crescent 30
- White Peacock 93
- Banded Peacock 3
- Band-celled Sister 1
- Mexican Bluewing 20
- Dingy Purplewing 1
- Common Mestra 28
- Gray Cracker 1
- Many-banded Daggerwing 1
- Ruddy Daggerwing 6
- Tropical Leafwing 12
- Tawny Emperor 100
- Carolina Satyr 3
- Queen 8
- Soldier 1
- White-striped Longtail 1
- Brown Longtail 8
- Mimosa Skipper 1
- Glazed Pellicia 1
- Mazans Scallopwing 2
- Sickle-winged Skipper 34
- Brown-banded Skipper 2
- White Checkered-Skipper 3
- Tropical Checkered-Skipper21
- Laviana White-Skipper 36
- East-Mexican White-Skipper 1
- Turk's-cap White-Skipper 4
- Fawn-spotted Skipper 1
- Clouded Skipper 8
- Southern Skipperling 1
- Fiery Skipper 1
- Whirlabout 4
- Sachem 2
- Common Mellana 9
- Celia's Roadside-Skipper 10
