After a lot of cold weather, things have warmed up for a few days and butterflies are out. Our elbow bush is blooming up a storm and attracting a few hairstreaks so I paid extra attention to it today and got rewarded with a tiny little hairstreak that I instantly recognized as new for the yard. It was the size of Ruddy Hairstreaks I have seen in the past though I was getting no orange color above. After getting a bunch of photos I went into the house to look at them and come up with an ID. It looked a lot like Ruddy Hairstreak though I didn't like how the post median band was so far from the thecla spot. It looked much like Mathew's Hairstreak in Glassberg's book but that one has some pale cell end bars. I posted the photos on Facebook and most agreed it looked like a Ruddy Hairstreak. Muted Hairstreak is pretty much identical but seems to be very rare in the RGV. Males can be separated by the color of the upper wings but we don't know how to ID females.
So in conclusion I'm calling it a Ruddy Hairstreak untill someone can prove different. And either way it's yard butterfly #143.
Here's one of several Gray Hairstreaks form the same elbow bush.
And there were a couple of Dusky-blue Groundstreaks.
New for the year was this Turk's-cap White-Skipper.
Lots of copulating today. Here's Gulf Fritillaries and Whirlabouts.
This winter form South Texas Satyr is pretty much spotless.
We had 31 species today but I'm to tired to make a list now. More warm weather tomorrow.
