I love serendipity. There has been an adult Red-footed Booby at Corpus Christi this past week. I see the reports daily on the Coastal Bend GroupMe app and on eBird alerts. Already having seen the species in Texas, I've been slow to get up there. But yesterday the bird which had normally been seen been sitting on a rock or marker at about 400 yards, was photographed much closer to the viewing area at the Corpus Christi Museum of Art parking lot. That was enough to get me to move. As the afternoon light is better, I got a leirsurely start and took off about 10am.
I had only gotten a hlf mile down the street when I realized I had forgotten something. So I turned around and went back to the apartment. Then I remembered I needed to make a dental appointment. Done. Now I was ready to leave. I casually looked at my phone and saw a new post on the Discord butterfly alert. I had the sound turned off so I almost missed it. Stephanie had posted a photo of a butterfly just found by Omar, one of the grounds keepers at the National Butterfly Center. "What is this?" Yikes! I instantly recognized it as a Red-spotted Patch and was the first to respond with the ID. To hell with the Red-footed Booby. This is a long wanted lifer butterfly!
I raced over and there was a small group circled around a patch of Gregg's mistflower by the conservatory in the back garden. And there was the brilliant black, yellow and red butterfly. The only previous record on iNat and BOA was from November 2006. There may be older records that are hidden away in the lepidopterists journals.
Damn that was a sweet butterfly! The discord sounded again. "Rosita Patch in front of the visitor's center." Some of us hopped in our cars and some started running back to the front. I've only seen a couple of Rosita Patches and it was years ago.
Nearby was the common Bordered Patch. The only ones missing are the once common Crimson Patch and the rare Banded Patch. Bet we get em.
While we were watcing the Red-spotted Patch a small white butterfly visited. It was another Barred Yellow, the third I've seen in three days.
After getting the Rosita Patch, Discord told us there was another Isabella Heliconian in the coma tree back by the Red-bordered Patch patch. People started running back south. It's only a few hundred yards but I hitched a ride with Billy. Looks like it's the same one from three days ago.
It was getting close to noon and I had been invited to the annual National Butterfly Center Thanksgiving lunch so I hoofed it back north. Nothing on the bait logs. Stephanie and the crew put out an excellent traditional thanksgiving spread and the staff and visting butterfly watchers were invited. It was damn good and I ate too much. Afterwards I waddled around in the garden and found a second smaller Isabella Heliconian.
And a Zebra.
The Blue-eyed Sailor spent the whole day sucking a lantana fruit. Must have been good.
Then word of a Telea Hairstreak back on the Isabella coma. I drove back for the second time with Stefon hitching a ride both times. We had met on an earlier butterfly festival trip. I learned he was teaching discrete mathematics on the college level so we had stuff in common. The Telea hairstreak was a little jewell. I've seen a few through the years.
There were so many other uncommon butterflies around. I'm sure I'm pretty close to a hundred species for the past two day. The November list for the Natioal butterfly Center has heached and all time monthly high of 135 species. We still have a few days to go. Ho hum. Here's another Red rim.
