Brush Country Butterflies, 10/23/16

The Texas Butterfly Festival is coming up in a week and one of the trips I am leading was looking pretty grim.  I'm supposed to take a group up to Sal del Rey tract of the Lower Rio Grande NWR to look for some uncommon things like Red-crescent Scrub-Hairstreak, Desert Checkered-Skipper and Erichson's and East-Mexican White-Skippers.  They were all present up there last fall but when I checked the area a couple of weeks ago everything was fried.  The long hot summer had taken its toll and none of the specialties were present.

So today I thought I would try CR 30 which is about five miles to the east in Willacy county.  When I passed through there two weeks ago there weren't many butterflies but at least it was green and a few things like lantana was blooming.  Well, I made the right choice.  I found fifteen Red-crescent Scrub-Hairstreaks.

A real surprise were two Blue Metalmarks, a boy and a girl.

And there were a few Desert Checkered-Skippers.

After failing to find any Julia's Skippers the other day at the National Butterfly Center it was nice to see some today.

Here's a very fresh Clouded Skipper.

Then I ran over to Brushline Road to try the MoVac Road again.  It was a little greener and I could see it had rained some.  Still not very many butterflies but on the way out I managed to run across two Erichson's White-Skippers.  So it turned out to be a good day and things are looking better for the Festival trip.

Clouded Skippers from May 2015

There was a post on TX-Butterflies today about Clouded versus Liris Skippers.  I've never seen a Liris skipper but I've seen hundred of Cloudeds.  Here's a few recent photos.  The costal striping above the white spots near the tip if the fore wing seems pretty consistent.  These are from Santa Ana NWR this May.

Here's one from the National Butterfly Center 5/26/15.

But here's one from last June at the NBC.

And one from last October at the NBC.

And one from 11/21/13 at NBC.

Looking at the Liris Skippers photos on BOA I don't see the costal striping on any of the images.  I might have more trouble separating Liris from Julia's Skipper.  Guess I'll keep looking.