Warm weather is pretty much back to stay and butterflies were in good supply at the National Butterfly Center today despite a lack of rain. Several present were species that are normally more common in the arid brush country west of here like this Common Streaky Skipper.
And this Texas Powdered Skipper.
Coyote Cloudywing is also much more common west of here. I tried to turn them into Jalapus Cloudywings but I couldn't get enough of a tail on the wings.
Butterfly of the day was probably this fresh Great Purple Hairstreak, another brush country specialist.
This list of 48 species is exceptionally large for early spring. Hope we get some rain but none is forecast anytime soon.
- Pipevine Swallowtail 2
- Black Swallowtail 1
- Giant Swallowtail 1
- Checkered White 3
- Orange Sulphur 2
- Southern Dogface 2
- Large Orange Sulphur 1
- Little Yellow 3
- Sleepy Orange 2
- Great Purple Hairstreak 1
- Gray Hairstreak 2
- Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 1
- Dusky-blue Groundstreak 6
- Fatal Metalmark 1
- American Snout 5
- Zebra Heliconian 1
- Bordered Patch 3
- Texan Crescent 10
- Vesta Crescent 2
- Phaon Crescent 12
- Painted Lady 3
- Red Admiral 10
- White Peacock 1
- Mexican Bluewing 4
- Carolina Satyr 6
- Monarch 1
- Queen 4
- Brown Longtail 3
- Coyote Cloudywing 2
- Mimosa Skipper 1
- Texas Powdered-Skipper 1
- Sickle-winged Skipper 2
- White-patched Skipper 1
- Mournful Duskywing 2
- Funereal Duskywing 6
- White Checkered-Skipper 10
- Tropical Checkered-Skipper 15
- Laviana White-Skipper 12
- Common Streaky-Skipper 1
- Clouded Skipper 8
- Double-dotted Skipper 1
- Southern Skipperling 3
- Fiery Skipper 10
- Whirlabout 6
- Southern Broken-Dash 3
- Sachem 1
- Common Mellana 2
- Eufala Skipper 3
