I finally got caught up with my photos and iNaturalist stuff for the Texas Butterfly Festival so it was time to run over to the National Butterfly Center and take advantage of the beaurtiful weather and look for rare butterflies. I really wanted to check that big crucita patch on the south 70 acres. As I drove back I checked a few crucita and found nothing interesting. Then as a I approached the little pond I noticed it was very low with mudflats around it. Ode guru Ben Schwartz had found some good dragonflies here a few weeks ago. Maybe I could find something. Maybe even a tiger beetle. I don't have any for the park.
I walked a round the dry mud and trampled sedge. The local deer and javelina have been having fun here. Dragonflies were all common stuff. The huge Common Green Darners were mating down in the sedge and their wings beeting against the blades of grass startled me at first. Rattlesnakes?
Then a black tiger beetle on the damp mud. I expected the common S-banded Tiger Beetle. Wrong! I got lots of photos of this first iNaturalist record of Punctured Tiger Beetle. It's one of the most common tiger beetle species across the eastern three fourths of the USA. There are single iNat records from Starr and Cameron Counties. But the field guide shows it occuring across all of Texas. I was hoping to find one some day.
The rest of the afternoon was just a replay of the last few days. Good stuff but the same stuff. Here's the Malachite.
Up front the fire bush (Hamelia patens) was still hopping with hairstreaks. The Yojoa and White Scrub-Hairstreaks were still popular with the visiting butterfly watchers.
And the Marius Hairstreak.
And a coy little Dusky-blue Groundstreak.
I checked the crucita in the mesquite woodland hoping for Terry's Starred Skipper. This sharp Guava Skipper was not adequate consolation.
Another good day! Tomorrow I'm thinking about a run up to Rockport for a couple of lifers. We'll see how I feel when I wake up.
