Rio Grande Valley Butterflies: 2026

Friday, June 26, 2026

Great Day at the National Butterfly Center, 6/25/26

It's been normally hot and breezy for this time of year in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. But a Gold-spotted Aguna and a Ruby-spotted Swallowtail were reported at the Nationaal butterfly Center so I thought I had better get myself over there before everything fries.

It was hot and nasty when I stepped out of the apartment but when I got over to the NBC and started sweating a bit with a nice breeze it was fine. My first butterfly was a Clytie Ministreak. There were lots of them.

I worked the front garden a while and saw only common stuff. Then all of a sudden, at about 11am, the hairstreaks started to pop. First there was a White Scrub-Hairstreak. New for the month!

And then a Ruddy/Muted. This one never opened it's wings although the probability it's a Ruddy is about 99%.

But this one flashed orange when it flew so it's a male Ruddy Hairstreak.

Then the usual Dusky-blue Groundstreaks and Mallow Scrub-hairstreaks. And then the common for this summer but usually rare Clench's Greenstreak.

Peggy had joined me by this time and two more Clench's showed up. We totaled six of them for the morning with six species of hairstreaks in this one little fiddlewood. Nearby I found the first of three Marius Hairstreaks,

A bit later I showed Peggy a blooming crucillo and explained to her it was the host plant for Band-celled Sister. A minute later I was shocked when she called one out. I got my camera out and shot a photo. The band was wrong. Not a Band-celled Sister. Then I realized the under wings were all wrong and it was not even a sister. It was a female Silver Emperor. Another new one for the month! We had so many last winter I was expecting we would see some this summer. It was a pretty easy to make mistake on the blooming Randia rhagocarpa.

It was a really good morning with eight species of hairstreaks and a Silver Emperor. I drove to the south garden, ate my lunch and made another try for a ten hairstreak day. I failed on my last try a few weeks ago. The Curve-winged Metalmarks are still plentiful.

And plenty of Mexican Bluewings. I caught this one in the act laying an egg on the Vasey's Adelia.

Then I noticed the Brush Holly patch was blooming. This is our spot for daggerwings during summer. Today it was covered in American Snouts but I did mange to pull out another Silver emperor.

Then I saw a Tachytes species of wasp just sitting there on a leaf waiting for a photo. So I took one. Woops it's not a wasp at all but a damn Dipteran! The antennae say fly as to the tiny green vestigal wings. I haven't entered it into iNaturalist yet but I'm guessing this is a Tachytes mimic. Look at those freaky eyes!

It was getting warm. I walked over to the blooming Mexican Orchid and found it loaded with Lyside and Large Orange Sulphurs and Great American Whites. But one of them had spots. First Giant White for the month.

There were several Western Giant Swallowtails.

And then the one I was looking for, a fresh Ornythion Swallowtail.

So a pretty fantastic day with four new species for the Big Board briging the June total to a record 92 species. 53 species today is pretty incredible for this time of year.

Giant Swallowtail 5
Ornythion Swallowtail 1
Checkered White 6
Great Southern White 20
Giant White 1
Large Orange Sulphur 25
Lyside Sulphur 40
Little Yellow 6
Dainty Sulphur 6
Marius Hairstreak 3
Clench's Greenstreak 6
Gray Hairstreak 1
White Scrub-Hairstreak 1
Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 66
Ruddy Hairstreak 3
Dusky-blue Groundstreak 10
Clytie Ministreak 15
Cassius Blue 3
Ceraunus Blue 5
Reakirt's Blue 2
Red-bordered Metalmark 1
Curve-winged Metalmark 10
American Snout 25
Gulf Fritillary 4
Mexican Fritillary 2
Bordered Patch 12
Texan Crescent 5
Pale-banded Crescent 8
Phaon Crescent 5
Question Mark 3
White Peacock 10
Mexican Bluewing 12
Tropical Leafwing 6
Empress Leilia 1
Tawny Emperor 12
Silver Emperor 2
Queen 5
Soldier 5
Brown Longtail 6
Sickle-winged Skipper 1
White Checkered-Skipper 3
Tropical Checkered-Skipper 6
Laviana White-Skipper 5
Common Sootywing 2
Clouded Skipper 6
Double-dotted Skipper 2
Southern Skipperling 2
Whirlabout 8
Southern Broken-Dash 5
Common Mellana 1
Celia's Roadside-Skipper 10
Eufala Skipper 5
Mexican Crescent 10

Sunday, June 14, 2026

Panhandle Butterflies, 6/8/26

After a fun morning at the Gene Howe WMA east of Canadian in Hemphill County, I ran up to a road fifteen miles away that I was wanting to check in Lipscomb County in the NW corner of the Texas Panhandle. I should have gotten up there earlier in the day but butterfly activity was so slow at Gene Howe that I wasn't too excited about it. It was just a perfunctory check while I was in the area. But four years ago James Giroux had some good Great Plains butterflies up there.

As I drove up US 83 through the rolling short grass prairie my Jeep's thermometer said 97F. That's not good. Soon I reached TX 23 and just a mile to CR CC which runs east-west. I immediately saw a few thistles and my only Gulf Fritillary for the trip.

Not a lot else but across the road was another thistle, this one with a skipper. Glassberg's guide shows this one to be a Green Skipper. I've only seen a few of these so that was nice.

There were Gallairdia, thistles, legumes and other flowers I didn't know. More flowers than I had seen on this trip. So I started walking the road and found this big hairstreak on a Gaillardia. This is one I was hoping for, Gray Copper, a Great Plains grassland specialist.

And just a few feet down the road I recognized Painted Crescent from my Big Bend trip a few weeks ago,

And then my lifer Fulvia Ceckerspot. Actually I saw Fulvia Checkerspot in the Chiricahuas a few years ago, but that race has been raised to full specific status and is known as the Chiricahua Checkerspot. This is the real Fulvia Chekcerspot.

After about a quaerter mile I ran out of flowers so I walked back to the Jepp and drove a bit more down the road. Another Gray Copper was on the Purple Coneflower.

Then a big tawny unmarked grass skipper. I'm pretty sure it's the endangedered Ottoe Skipper. There were several over the next couple of hundred yards. I'm still waiting for a corroborating ID on iNat.

And then a boldly marked Uncas Skipper, my first for Texas.

And more Green Skippers. The Narrow-leaf Purple Coneflowers were really productive,

Then I glimpsed a little dark grass skipper and fired a few shots. Based on habitat, the dark medial patch on the hind wing and the poorly checked dark fringe I think this is Oslar's Roadside-Skipper. I was hoping to find one of these in the Davis Mountains. I'm waitng for an ID on this one too.

This next skipper had me checking the guide. I saw several like it. I think it's just a heavily worn Uncas Skipper.

This hairstreak had me scratching my head. The SM band is a little strange but the thecla spot says Gray Hairstreak.

Another Fulvia Checkerspot.

And then a smaller more yellow grass skipper with pale veins on the hind wing. Another endangered prairie species, Aragos Skipper. James Giroux had them at the same spot.

Another Uncas Skipper.

Another Ottoe Skipper. This one has a faint spot band.

Grassland butterflies are threatened across the country by poor grazing practices and the plow. CR CC is a nice little road that runs through some still healthy short grass prairie. I think I picked up five lifers. After two hours the temperature had reached 102. Didn't seem to bother the butterflies but I was fried.

Saturday, June 13, 2026

National Butterfly Center, 6/13/26

After a few days of editing photos I needed to get out and sweat so I ran over to the National Butterfly Center. I was welcomed by this oddly marked Coyote (Skinner's) Cloudywing. New for the June Big Board. #77!

Only three species of hairstreaks today. Here's a Dusky-blue Groundstreak.

Not a lot else going on in the front garden except for this Brazilian Skipper, my first for the year and #78 on the Big Board which is pretty good for June.