Yturria Brush, 2/16/26

Recently Terry Mortier and Corrine McDonald each reported blooming Chomonque and a few butterflies at the Yturria Brush unit of the Lower Rio Grande Valley NWR west of La Joya so I thought it was time to make a visit.  I found the refuge extremely dry with many plants leafless.  A few were trying to sprout spring leaves and Huisachillo was starting to bloom.  As reported the Chomonques were in full bloom though looking ragged.  They had gotten enough rain last summer to pull off one last brave attempt to reproduce despite the dry fall and winter.  Though rather homely, this subtropical composite really attracts the butterflies.  Maybe because it's the only game in town.

Working the trail from the old parking lot by the freeway it didn't take long to find a Skinner's Cloudywing.

Chomonques are good at attracting hairstreaks but all I found were a few Gray Hairstreaks.

My targets for the day were Nysa Roadside-Skipper and Common Streaky Skipper.  I was hopeful when I spied a tiny brown butterfly flying low like a patrolling skipper.  Not my target but still pretty good, Texas Powdered Skipper.

Southern Dogfaces were out.

Then a couple more tiny brown guys.  Got my Nysa Roadside-Skipper!

My original plan was to go to the National Butterfly Center after lunch but things were going good at Yturria so I stayed for another perusal of the trail.  Another small brown skipper was feeding on Chomonque.  My first impression was another Texas Powdered Skipper but this one turned out to be a Caballo (the old name Potrillo is for the Caribbean taxon) Skipper.  First I've seen at Yturria.

Then a tiny black thing.  It's not every day you get a Common Sootywing at eye level.

Texan Crescents were a bit unexpected.

Variegated Fritillary is usually pretty common out in the desert.

It's hard to turn down a White-striped Longtail.

I didn't find the Common Streaky Skipper but still a good three hours with 22 species.

• Black Swallowtail 1
• Southern Dogface 10
• Cloudless Sulphur 1
• Lyside Sulphur 20
• Sleepy Orange 10
• Gray Hairstreak 3
• Reakirt's Blue 5
• American Snout 50
• Texan Crescent 8
• Vesta Crescent 3
• Phaon Crescent 1
• Empress Leilia 5
• Queen 1
• White-striped Longtail 1
• Coyote Cloudywing 1
• Potrillo Skipper 1
• Texas Powdered-Skipper 2
• Funereal Duskywing 1
• Laviana White-Skipper 1
• Common Sootywing 1
• Sachem 1
• Nysa Roadside-Skipper 2

National Butterfly Center, 2/12/26

I haven't posted in a few weeks.  We had a freeze here in the Lower Rion Grande Valley of south Texas with a couple of nights with 5-6 hours below 32F.  It wasn't a big freeze but it was enough to give a pretty good burn to some of the plants.  I would say maybe 10% of plants at the National Butterfly Center suffered some damage.  But we warmed right back up to the 80's and butterflies are starting to recover some.  Halfway through the month the NBC species total is 85 which is actually pretty good.  The main problem now is it is extremely dry with no rain in sight.

There were no major rarities on the day but two Brown-banded Skippers were unusual.

It was nice to see a Mexican Bluewing.  A pair were cavorting near their Vassey's Adelia host plant.

Little flowers attract little butterflies like this Western Pygmy Blue on Tridax.

The booming Elbow Bush also attracted tiny guys like Reakirt's blue and  Dusky-blue Groundstreak.

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I assumed the few smallish orange butterflies I was seeing were Sleepy Oranges, but the only one I photographed was a Tailed Orange.

There was another Caballo (AKA Potrillo) Skipper in the ditch below the blooming Azureum.  They tend to like shady places.

Common Sootywings have not been very common.

Terry Mortier from Wisconsin, who has been down in the Valley finding butterflies for the past four months, is off to Arizona.  We will miss his eyes in the field.  I may join him in a few weeks as I still need to see a number of the spring southwestern butterflies.

Last warm weather at the NBC, 1/22-23/26

We fought off winter a long time this fall here in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of south Texas, but yesterday it finally arrived in a fury and it's in the upper 30's as I write this.  We're supposed to have freezing temps the next two mornings so our fantastic fall butterfly season of 2025-26 may offically be over.  We have had a few cold cloudy days in the 50s so butterfly numbers have been knocked down but decent stuff was still showing during the past few warm days.  This friendly Banded Peacock has been a popular photographic subject at the National Butterfly Center.

The same patch of spring mist flower held a White Scrub-Hairstreak for several hours.

Mazan's Scallopwing is pretty uncommon at the NBC so this was a nice find by the palapa.  Twenty two minutes later I found a second at the Hackberry Trail crossover where the above two butterflies were found.  But later inspection of the photos found these two bugs to be the same butterfly.  So it had moved about 80 yards in those 22 minutes.  Pretty cool to document that movement.  The image differences are due to the old 7D Mk II struggling with exposures.  Or maybe it's the photographer's fault.

Terry Mortier found a Mexican Silverspot ovipositing on passion vine.  All I could find was this Zebra Longwing doing the same thing.

After a fall without Rounded Metalmark I finally found one.  At least that is my guess and the iNaturalist AI concurs.

Mexican Bluewings have been in short supply.  This looks like a freshly eclosed male.

My best find on the last warm day was this Falcate Skipper, my first for the new year.

It has been a good fall for Marius Hairstreaks.  This is what they typically look like.

But late in the afternoon we found this thing.  It as the gray eyes of the genus Rekoa, but seemed a little off.  The dark smudgey PM band had me thinking about Smudged Hairstreak Rekoa stagira.  But looking at photos on BOA it seems the white edges of the PM band are too bright and it has too many blue scales below the thecla and is more likely a boldly marked marius.

And finally last Sunday there was this dark, almost black grass skipper at Santa Ana NWR.  I saw it for only a few seconds.  I know of no regularly occuring grass skipper that is so dark and seemingly unmarked about.  I think it's a first US record for something.  Glassberg won't speculate.  I will try sending the photos to a few others.  There are several dark skipper possibilities to the south in Mexico.  But there may not be enough in the photos to make a positive ID.

They have us warming back to above 70 on Thursday.  We'll see.  It will be interesting to find who survives the cold.

Tiger Mimic-Queen at NBC, I'm finally the hero! 1/9/26

During this amazing fall/winter butterfly season of 2025/25 I have been treated to seven lifer butterflies.  It's been a long time since I've gotten that many in a season.  And all have been found by other butterfly watchers.  I am reminded of Blanche DuBois' line "Whoever you are...  I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."  Now mind you, though I did not find any of these lifers, I was first to properly identify several of them.  And I have found some good ones that were lifers for others.  So I've been sort of carrying my weight.

But yesterday I had a senior moment.  I had refound the rare Black Hairstreak that has been around a few days at the National Butterfly Center and put it on the Discord alert.  I knew a few people present who wanted to see it.  But I accidentally entered "Black Crescent".  I had Black Crescent on the brain.  The day before I had found a very dark Pale-banded Crescent and had hoped it was a rare Black Crescent.  Also there was a questionable recent report of a Black Crescent.   Well, everyone came running.  Peter DeGennaro excitedly asked "Where is it?"  It took me a minute to realize my error.  Billy Webber was racing over from the nearby Oleander Acres garden.  "No Billy No!  Black Hairstreak" I typed on Discord.  Everyone laughed and forgave me.  But having just turned 70, I was feeling old and not enjoying the moment.

So today I went for one last day at the National Butterfly Center before the approaching cold front.  The past two days had been very windy so we were all hoping something good had blown in from Mexico.  I was at the blooming spring mistflower by the palapa looking for the reported Malicious Skipper, when I saw a large brightly colored butterfly only a couple of feet away.  Bight orange and black tiger stripes like an Isabella Heliconian.  But the black thorax was spotted with white... like a Queen or a Monarch.  Tiger Mimic-Queen!  This rare relative of the Monarch, a Heliconia mimic, has been seen few times in the RGV.  I had a fun experience chasing one with Mark and Holly Salvato years ago at the NBC and I saw a second at Quinta Mazatlan.  This one was a knockout.  And it stayed all day, feeding on the spring mist flowers.  Everyone got to see it.

Wow!  That was a doosey!  So I left the happy throng and went to the mist flower cross over to look for another Malicious Skipper and I spied a very colorful crescent. The bright white hind wing band with an extension on the second spot spot screamed female Chestnut Crescent.  I put out the word and the happy gang came thundering one more time.

And then things went back to just normal spectacular.  Dennis Vollmar found this striking fresh Guatemalan Cracker.  I tried hard to turn it into Variable but the double blue rings on the hind wing ocelli say Guatemalan.

I found a Zilpa Longtail but no one else got it.

Then there were the usual Malachites, Silver and Pavon Emperors, Band-celled Sisters, etc that normally bring people runing but we're a little jaded this year.  Glad to have a few days off with the cool front blasting through.