Santa Ana NWR, 8/4/24

We had quite a bit of rain a couple of weeks ago so I ran over to Santa Ana NWR yesterday to check out the conditions.  In particular I wanted to check out the lakes and see if they had any water and maybe some dragonflies.  Turns out there is no surface water at all.  The thirsty ground soaked up all the rain so things actually look pretty lush despite the ponds all being dry.  Unfortuanately the refuge staff had mowed the dry Willow Lakes complex to prepare for the fall waterfowl season and in the process wiped out the balloon vines which had produce a good crop of lovely Silver-banded Hairstreaks earlier in the summer.  I couldn't find any so heres a photo from June14.

There was a nice patch of frog fruit which attracted a bunch of Phaon Cresents and this Julia's Skipper.

I've recently gotten adicted to iNaturalist and to native bees in particular.  I've yet to work out an ID on these little green sweat bees.  The blooming flower head is only about 5 mm wide.

So I wandered back over to the tour road and found the Tenaza were blooming.  For some reason they always all bloom on the same day and are only open a couple of days.  They were loaded with butterflies, mostly American Snouts, but I did mange to pick out a good one.  I am guessing this is the first Gold-spotted Aguna to be seen in the US this year.

Also nectering on the fluffy Tenaza blooms were White-striped and Brown Longtails.  They have been hard to find this year.

Also high in the Tenaza were Large Orange Sulphurs and Soldiers.

Mimosa Skippers are usually found on the ground.  They use the thorny pink mimosas that grow in area ditches as a host plant.  It's unusual to see one up in the Tenaza.

It was getting hot so I returned to the old manager's residence area and checked out the only blooming white lantana.  There were several Common Mestras.

And this metalmark looking somewhat in between a Fatal and a Rounded.  I'm guessing it's a Rounded.

Earlier I had noticed activity in the butterfly garden at the entrance to the parking lot.  So afer cooling down and having some lunch I checked it out.  A medium sized yellow with a boyant flight had me thinking of Dina Yellow but it was the more common Boisduval's Yellow which is actually pretty uncommon at Santa Ana.  I think this is the lightly makred summer form.

Well that was nice.  A few Phaon Crescents bounced around the non native flowers (I can't remember the name) by the entrance kiosk and one was a little larger.  This beat up Pale-banded Cresent is my first of the year.

So things are starting to pick up as the summer progresses.  Unfortunately we have a week of 100 degrees temperatures ahead with no rain.  Maybe that little low pressure brewing in the Caribbean can help us out.