Good south wind at Progreso Lakes, 10/16/22

Our first cold front of the fall is due tomorrow and that usually sucks up warm wind from the south before it arrives.  So I made a conscious effort to run up a butterfly list for our Progreso Lakes yard today.  Our yard is also blooming nicely and combined with the southerly wind my expectations were high.  As it turned out, there were a lot of butterflies but not anything unusual.  I think it may take a few more fronts and a few more days of southerly wind to bring up the good stuff.

Butterfly of the day goes to a couple of Fawn-spotted Skippers.  Formerly common in our yard, this species was wiped out by last year's February freeze.  These are the first I've seen since then though they are still present in the Brownsville area.

Mimosa Skippers are a specialty of the mid and lower RGV.  They use the thorny pink flowered   

mimosas that line the ditches and resacas to as a host plant.  Today I had five which is pretty unusal.

The wind brought a Mazan's Scallopwing to the yard.  We only get one or two per year.

White-patched Skippers are finally showing after a long absense.

Dorantes Longtails have also just arrived.  It seems many butterflies time their reproduction to coincide with the fall flower season.

Soldiers have recently marched into the yard for the fall.

Here's today's list of 51 species.

• Pipevine Swallowtail 1
• Giant Swallowtail 5
• Cloudless Sulphur 8
• Large Orange Sulphur 4
• Lyside Sulphur 2
• Little Yellow 10
• Mimosa Yellow 2
• Gray Hairstreak 1
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 3
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 2
• Clytie Ministreak 1
• Western Pygmy-Blue 5
• Ceraunus Blue 6
• Rounded Metalmark 6
• Red-bordered Metalmark 10
• American Snout 200
• Gulf Fritillary 5
• Bordered Patch 10
• Pearl Crescent   1
• Vesta Crescent 5
• Phaon Crescent 5
• Painted Lady 1
• Red Admiral 1
• White Peacock 15
• Tawny Emperor 8
• Queen 50
• Soldier 5
• White-striped Longtail 3
• Dorantes Longtail 1
• Brown Longtail 8
• Mimosa Skipper 5
• Mazans Scallopwing 1
• Sickle-winged Skipper 60
• White-patched Skipper 1
• Mournful Duskywing 1
• White Checkered-Skipper 6
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 8
• Laviana White-Skipper 12
• Turk's-cap White-Skipper 1
• Common Sootywing 2
• Julia's Skipper 3
• Fawn-spotted Skipper 2
• Clouded Skipper 50
• Double-dotted Skipper 4
• Southern Skipperling 3
• Fiery Skipper 6
• Whirlabout 6
• Southern Broken-Dash 10
• Common Mellana 10
• Celia's Roadside-Skipper 6
• Eufala Skipper 8