Finishing up 2025 at the NBC, 12/27-28/25

 A cold front was scheduled to hit the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas on the 29th so I took advantage of the 85F warm weather at the National Butterfly Center.  As had been the case lately, the park had plenty of good butterflies though nothing earth shattering.  The Northern Faceted-Skipper (Malicious Skipper) in the ditch has been a lifer butterfly for most.  I got my best shots of it.

Butterflies in the Family Nymphalidae have only four legs.  But they are insects so where are the other two legs?  The front pair of legs are reduced in size.  In the case of this Pavon Emperor they are day glow green and flank the green proboscis.

I've seen more Red-lined Scrub-Hairstreaks this fall than I had in total the past twenty years.

Lots of Western Pygmy Blues lately.

Early on the 28th Ryan Rodriguez found a Clench's Greenstreak.  Later in the day I thought I ad had found a second.  But this scruffy bug turned out to be a Telea Hairstreak.  The PM band is hard to see.

Here's a nice Marius Hairstreak.  It has gray eyes as do other members of the Genus Rekoa.

One of the better Band-celled sister I've ever seen.

The 28th finished with this spectacular Ruby-spotted Swallowtail putting on a show.

Unfortunately for me I missed two fantastic butterflies.  Kristy Baker has a fresh Guatemalan Leafwing in her yard.  There are only a handful of records in the USA.  The one I saw was pretty scruffy.  At least eight people made the 40 mile drive to her yard and all missed it.  The second fatastic butterfly was a Rusty-tipped Page found by Jim Snyder at Resaca de la Palma.  He only got one shot of this large congener of the Malachite.  Having butterflied a lot in the tropics he had seen many and had no idea it was so rare up here and reported it a little late.

It's 56F as I write this on the 30th.  But we warm to the 80s again in a couple of days so there no reason we can't get some more of these rare butterflies.

Just Another Fantastic Day at the NBC, 12/13/25

Any other December this would be considered a pretty fantastic day.  But this year it's ho-humm.  Same old stuff.  I was telling Chris Balboni and Terry Mortier how spoiled we are.  They concurred.  After a two week absence, Ruby-spotted Swallowtails were back.

The cry "Malachite on the bait log!" usually brings people running.  With most of the visiting butterfly watchers gone, this one fed in peace.

Here's a fresh male Mexican Bluewing.  Not many of these guys around lately.

Yesterday's pristine Band-celled Sister now has a bite missing from the hind wings.  It's a dangerous world out there.

A formerly rare Mexican Crescent was on the tiny Tridax patch.

I am not a photographer.  I set my camera ISO from 400 to 1600, depending on light, and shift it into P Mode and let the old Canon 7D Mk II do all the thinking.  RAW?  What the hell is that?  It's JPEG all the way.  This works OK most of the time.  But she really stuggles with black and red as in a Red Rim.  The black makes it want to open for more light and then it doesn't know what to do with the red.  So here's pre and post editing.  I don't love it.

I really didn't like what I was seeing on the back of my camera while in the field.  So I desparately switched to C1 mode.  I don't know what is stored in that setting but it actually gave me a pretty realsitic color.  How about that!

Up front there were both Florida and Giant Whites.

Julias have been hard to come by this fall.

I walked the ditch a couple of times hoping for the Malicious (Northern Faceted) Skipper but had to settle for a Potrillo (Caballo) Skipper.

It was a really good December day with 61 species.  Usually we've had some cold weather by now and species totals are much lower.  A cool front comes in today.  But it's only supposed to drop into the 50's.  Full steam ahead!

Pipevine Swallowtail 1

• Ruby-spotted Swallowtail 2
• Florida White 1
• Checkered White 2
• Giant White 1
• Orange Sulphur 1
• Southern Dogface 3
• Cloudless Sulphur 1
• Large Orange Sulphur 8
• Lyside Sulphur 6
• Tailed Orange 2
• Little Yellow 6
• Marius Hairstreak 1
• Gray Hairstreak 1
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 3
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 3
• Western Pygmy-Blue 1
• Ceraunus Blue 6
• Reakirt's Blue 2
• Fatal Metalmark 2
• Red-bordered Pixie 6
• American Snout 20
• Gulf Fritillary 6
• Julia Heliconian 1
• Zebra Heliconian 3
• Mexican Fritillary 8
• Bordered Patch 4
• Texan Crescent 3
• Pale-banded Crescent 2
• Vesta Crescent 1
• Phaon Crescent 12
• American Lady 1
• Red Admiral 10
• Common Buckeye 1
• White Peacock 3
• Malachite 1
• Band-celled Sister 1
• Mexican Bluewing 2
• Common Mestra 1
• Red Rim 2
• Tropical Leafwing 8
• Empress Leilia 5
• Tawny Emperor 8
• Monarch 5
• Queen 40
• Soldier 2
• White-striped Longtail 2
• Brown Longtail 3
• Potrillo Skipper 1
• White Checkered-Skipper 8
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 8
• Laviana White-Skipper 8
• Clouded Skipper 10
• Southern Skipperling 2
• Fiery Skipper 8
• Whirlabout 2
• Sachem 1
• Common Mellana 1
• Eufala Skipper 6
• Purple-washed Skipper 1
• Mexican Crescent 1

Fantastic Day at NBC, 11/22/25

The Green-backed Ruby-eye was reported at sunset last night at the National Butterfly Center so I showed up early this morning to hopefully see this big crepuscular Mexican skipper.  This one has been showing well the past several morning for but only for a few minutes.  I'm usually eating breakfast when it's reported.  So a few other butterfly watchers and myself waited at the blooming esperanza hoping for the magical apparition but it was not to be.  I had to settle for a Curved-wing Metalmark.

Speaking of metalmarks, the Red-bordered Pixie explosion continues.  I probably saw over 30 of them today.

Several Red-bordered Metalmarks were out as well.  The metalark family Riodinidae has many spectacular butterflies in the tropics but only a few species occur north of the Mexican border.

 

Silver-banded Hairstreaks have been common lately.

I had turned off the sound on my Discord app butterfly alert as there were so many pointless coments being made and the app was sounding every few minutes.  So I was surprised when someone casually asked me if I had seen the Isabella Heliconian.  What the....?  I jumped in the jeep and raced to the front garden and there was a small crowd gathered around something.  It was a good something!  It's been a few years since I've seen one of these tropical beauties.

Then the Isabella's congener shows up.  After an absence of several months Zebra Heliconias are popping up across the Valley.

Many of the visiting butterfly watchers were missing as they had run off to Bentsen State park for a reported Banded Peacock.  Now they were racing back for the Isabella.  And guess what shows up.  A second Banded Pecock!  They were kicking themselves for the unneccessary trip.  This is a super fresh one.

Clytie Ministreaks were all over the place.

I headed back to the south garden.  It was a great morning but my two targets of Green-backed Ruby-eye and Hoary Skipper were no place to bee seen.  Chris Balboni found me this neat little diurnal flower moth.

I really like these Green Jewell Flies.

One last check of the front gardens before I quit.  I had turned my Discord app back on and it dinged reporting a Barred Yellow in front of the visitors center.  But my tired brain somehow transposed it into Orange-barred Sulphur.  So I raced over hoping for a good photo.  I saw the Indiana Gang gathered around a bush looking down taking photos.  

As I approached I yelled "Male or female?"  

They responded " I don't know."  How could they not know?  And how come I cant see it?  

"There it goes!"  How come I don't see this large brightly colored butterfly!

Terry Mortier went running after it looking downward.  How come I can't see it?

"Uhm... Because it's not a big Orange-barred Sulphur you dumbass.  It's a tiny Barred Yellow." I chided myself.  It's been over ten years since I've seen one and was lucky to get a photo.

The Barred Yellow got my juices flowing so I thought one last run of the Hackberry Trail bait logs would be in order.  I finally got the Red Rim.

My first Malachite for the day.

And back in the south garden by the rest rooms another Red rim and a Band-celled Sister.

What a day!  Usually two or three hours is enough for me.  I spent over seven and no doubt walked a few miles.