I've been keeping an eye on iNaturalist and decided it was time for my first butterfly expedition for 2026. I could get more lifers in Arizona but I wanted to work on my Texas list so I headed out to work the Trans-Pecos region of west Texas. My first stop was in Zapata at the Stripes convenience store and yielded a flock of Chuihuahuan Ravens working on a breakfast taco.
My usual first butterfly stop on the way west is always at the Pecos River boat ramp on US 90. The target here is Dotted Checkerspot. I didn't see any but it's a little early in the season. I'm hoping the colony is still alive after the severe drought that has plagued western Texas. Things didn't look that bad, a few floweres were blooming. Here's the usual Marine Blue on guajillo, a butterfly symbol of west Texas.
The rest of the trip was through dry flowerless desert. I got a room at the humble OYO Motel Bien Venido which charges about a third the price of the other Alpine hotels. The affable long term residents look like they came from an episode of Breaking Bad. You get what you pay for😅
Next morning I made the long drive down to Pine Canyon in Big Bend National Park. I like Pine Canyon. I've had some good luck there in the past and it's nice to be away from the throngs of tourists in the Basin. As I approached from the Terlingua side, things looked pretty good on the western slopes of the Chisos Mountains. But after I passed the visitors center at Panther Gulch, things got a lot dryer. The dirt road up to the Pine Canyon trailhead was through lifeless desert. Many of the xeric plants adapted to this are of low precipitation looked dead. I lowered my expectations.
It was 11am by the time I made the Pine Canyon trail head for the two mile walk to the end of the box canyon known as the "pour off". A little late for birds but good for bugs. Unfortuately not a flower in sight. The tough beargrass and sotol made things look green but grass and forbes all looked dead.
Carpenter bee at a nest hole in a dead agave stalk. I haven't worked out an ID yet.
At the bushy juniper a half mile up that serves as a convenient rest stop I was surprised to see a fat tailed dragonfly land in front of me. Clubtail? It rested for a few seconds and them started skimming. What the...? My mind imagined all kinds of cool things like White-tailed Sylph but reason pointed me to Pale-faced Clubskimmer. I don't have a lot of experience with these but upon further review that seems to be what it is.
Halfway up the scrubby grassland turns to scrubby oaks and junipers with a few pinyon pines. And finally a showy Arizona Sister passed me and posed coyly on an oak.
And some kind of a duskywing. I saw a lot of these and right now I'm guessing Meridian Duskywing.
Red Satyr in a spot of sun.
Up in the wooded portion of the canyon a side trail leads to a seep that someties has some water. I wasn't expecting anything but there was a small pool and it was attracting insects. Here's aother probable Meridion Duskywing. It lacks the spiny gray thoracic hairs of Rocky Mountain duskywing.
My guess on this brilliant blue damselfly was Springwater Dancer and still is.
Arizona Sisters came for a drink and a rest.
My target for the day was the rare Chisos Banded-Skipper. I had a few glimspes of banded-skippers streak past me and when one finally landed it was the more common Golden Banded-Skipper. Still a welcome sight!
