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
