Well, I see that I haven't posted anything since June. Well maybe that's because we had 90 days of at least 100F and no rain over the ensuing four months. The harsh summer and fall decimated butterfly populations here in the Rio Grande Valley. But in last couple of monts we've had a few showers and things are looking better. The Texas Butterfly Festival had OK numbers of butterflies but really low diversity. Crucita was late blooming but showers and cooler weather have kept blooms on much later than usual. Our garden at Progreso Lakes looks pretty good now.
So yesterday I was making the rounds, hoping for some thing different, when I spied this striped long-tailed masterpiece. Finally our first Many-banded Daggerwing and butterfly species #150 for our yard! It was the species I thought was most overdue for our yard considering we've already had several Ruddy Daggerwings.
Red-bordered Pixies have made a strong someback. They are a favorite in our yard for visiting butterfly watchers.
I put our word about the Many-banded Daggerwing and visiting butterfly watchers rushed over but it was present for only a minute and never refound. But in turn they manged to turn up other good stuff like this Boisduval's Yellow. I haven'st seen one in our yard since spring.
They also found this Purple-washed Skipper which is maybe the first I've seen this year.
Our bair station has had Red Admirals, Tawny Emperors and finally an Empress Leilia.
There is no shortage of Queens.
Here's a list of 47 species of butterflies seen in our yard over the past two days .
- Giant White 1
- Southern Dogface 1
- Cloudless Sulphur 8
- Large Orange Sulphur 4
- Lyside Sulphur 4
- Boisduval's Yellow 1
- Little Yellow 5
- Mimosa Yellow 1
- Sleepy Orange 2
- Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 1
- Clytie Ministreak 1
- Fatal Metalmark 1
- Rounded Metalmark 1
- Red-bordered Metalmark 1
- Red-bordered Pixie 4
- American Snout 50
- Gulf Fritillary 2
- Bordered Patch 2
- Vesta Crescent 1
- Phaon Crescent 2
- Pearl Crescent 2
- Painted Lady 1
- Red Admiral 5
- Common Mestra 1
- Many-banded Daggerwing 1
- Empress Leilia 1
- Tawny Emperor 3
- Monarch 1
- Queen 25
- Soldier 6
- Guava Skipper 1
- Brown Longtail 5
- Mournful Duskywing 1
- White Checkered-Skipper 6
- Tropical Checkered-Skipper 3
- Laviana White-Skipper 3
- Common Sootywing 1
- Fawn-spotted Skipper 1
- Clouded Skipper 6
- Southern Skipperling 1
- Fiery Skipper 5
- Whirlabout 4
- Sachem 2
- Common Mellana 3
- Celia's Roadside-Skipper 1
- Eufala Skipper 8
- Purple-washed Skipper 1
