Clench's Greenstreak and a Ministreak Trifecta, 5/3/26

I spent the morning working on photos from Saturday's bird migration marathon at South Padre Island and I was just getting ready for lunch when the Dischord chimed.  Woody had just found a stonking Clench's Greenstreak at the National Butterfly Center.  I've seen a few of these but Woody's photos were better than any of mine so to hell with lunch for a while.  I wanted to see this beauty!

I entered the visitors center and Angelly told me Woody had it in the garden in the frostweed.  I ran out the back and was soon checking frostweed..... and I could not find it.  Just a few Reakirt's Blues and a Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak.  Sigh.  Well this happens.  Many times I've seen a butterfly for just a few seconds and then it's gone forever.  No harm in trying.  You can't win if you don't play.  And stuff like that.  

I headed for home to finish my lunch.  I had just passed the stop sign when I realized there was another patch of frostweed in the garden.  Duh.  I turned around, drove back and parked.  Kenneth Wilson was in the frostweed out front looking for the greenstreak.  I told him it was supposed to be in the sunken garden and that I had checked the frostweed on the west side but had forgotten about the frostweed on the east side.  We ran over and there was the green hairstreak nectaring on the frost weed.

Closeups showed it did indeed have the brown frons of a Clench's Greenstreak.  Tropical Greenstreak has a green frons.

The upper wing surface is bright blue but hard to see.

Pretty cool!  I went home to finish my lunch.  I was later working on bird photos again and the Dischord chimed again.  Woody had just found a Red-lined Scrub-Hairstreak.  Pretty good but we had a bunch of these this past winter.  Then I saw his beautiful photo.  The PM spot band was all wrong.  I checked Glassberg's book.  This was a Gray Ministreak!  The only one I had ever seen was years ago at The Old Hidalgo Pumphouse.  I raced back.

Peggy was there and showed me the fiddlewood bush but we couldn't find it.  She returned to her duties at the park's Spring Bird Big Sit.  I kept looking and eventually found it right where she had seen it.

Well that was nice.  Plenty of Clytie Ministreaks around for a second Ministrymon species.

Mission accomplished I decided to drive back to the south garden and check the Mexican orchid bush for swallowtails.  Only a few giants.  I wandered around and soon found the Big Sit crew.  They were up to 75 species of birds seen from their 50 feet diameter circle.  Pretty good.  

I went back to the Mexican orchid (It's actually a species of Bauhinia and not related to orchids) and saw just a bunch of Large Orange Sulphurs and a Western Giant Swallowtail.  I then checked the nearby fiddlewoods and saw a tiny hairstreak looking thing up high.  I shot a few phots before it escaped.  Dang!  That looks like another Gray Ministreak.  Then a voice in my head said "Check the eye color."  Damned if it didn't have green eyes.  This was a Vicroy's Ministreak and my third Ministrymon species for the day.  Not much of a shot but it will do.

It used to be thought that Gray Ministreak came in black eyed and green eyed forms.  Jeff Glassberg decribed the green eyed form as the Vicroy's Ministreak, naming it after his late wife.  It really looks different with a much rougher looking underwing surface and the PM band is not as bold.  Their host plants are also different.  Some refer to Vicroy's Ministreak as the Pebbly Ministreak.

Wow!   And this doesn't include Peggy's Tailed Cecropian.  This spring season is turning out to be special.

Black Hairstreak at National Butterfly Center, 12/21/15

I took it easy this morning, thinking about where I might go today.  Chris Balboni had a pretty good report from Yturria Brush.  Or maybe I'll stay home and watch football.  It was warm and yesterday had a good south wind so I decided to just go over to the National Butterfly Center.  As I passed the front garden I noticed a Mallow Scrub Hairstreak and though maybe it'll be a good hairstreak day.

I checked in. and proceeded to the sunken garden.  Lantana Scrub-Hairstreaks continue.

I was disappointed to see little on the brush holly that was blooming so heavily just a couple of days ago.  They bloom out fast.  So I checked the blooming fiddlewoods and got a Dusky-blue Groundstreak.

It was getting close to luch time so I started to wander back to the visitor's center and noticed Chris Balboni and Ryan Shaw looking at the litte brush holly.  I yelled "What you got?"  Ryan shouted "Some weird hairstreak."  

I ran over and recognized it immediately.  Black Hairstreak!  I had been waiting for this Mexican visitor since I missed the last one ten years ago.  It just sat there feeding on the few brush holly flowers that were left on the plant.  I guess I had missed it just a few minutes earlier.  What a cool hairstreak.  The photos in the book didn't do it justice.  RGV lifer #230.

After lunch I found a Great Purple Hairstreak up high in the chomonque.

And then I found a Clytie Ministreak in a nearby fiddlewood.  This one is a beauty.

Finally John Rosford found my seventh hairstreak for the day, Marius Haistreak.  I missed common Gray and Silver-banded Hairstreaks. 

He also got me a lifer hemipteran which I haven't IDed yet.

Mimosa Skipper is uncommon at the NBC but easier to find at Santa Ana and Resaca de la Palma where the host Black Mimosa is more common.

Some visitng birders from my old stomping grounds at New Mexico State were happy to see a Red Rim.

There have been several reports of Mexican Silverspot in the Valley lately and people wanted to see one.  Jon McIntyre found this one today by the corky-steed passionvine where they have oviposited in the past.

Wow!  What a good day!  A big fresh Malachite wished me "Adios" as I left.

No cold weather in the forecast.  Dry and 80's.  More good stuff on the way.

National Butterfly Center, 7/13/25

Meanwhile......  With the summer rain, Stephanie and the crew at the National Butterfly Center have the place looking great.  Plants are lush and blooming and screaming for butterflies.  The warm, humid wind has been blowing pretty hard from the southeast the past few days, feeding the Hill Country flooding, and I was hoping it might bring up some of our rare summertime swallowtails.  Not super rare but this beat up Ornythion Swallowtail was appreciated.  It's had a tough trip from Mexico!

Our usual Western Giant Swallowtails are supeficially similar but obviously a much brighter yellow.  The marginal spots on the hind wing are also shaped differently.

My first butterfly of the day was this tasty Red-bordered Pixie.  I saw two today and a couple more were reported last week.  So they are back baby!

My other metalmark species for the day was a pair of Red-bordered Metalmarks.

Fiddlewoods were blooming nicely and attracting hairstreaks.  Here are the common Gray Hairstreak, Dusky-blue Groundstreak and Clytie Ministreak.

Beewise I got a lifer today.  This is the tiny Cobalt Small Carpenter Bee.  I have probbly seen them in the past and passed them of as a metallic sweat bee.  But thas bulbous abdomen is pretty distinct.  I wish I had gotten better photos.

I think this guy is a bee also but I have some research to do.  It looks familiar.

Thy've had a lot of rain in Mexico so it should be about time for the butterfly factories to send some beauties out way.  I need to start a weekly survey of the park.

Angled Leafwing at National Butterfly Center, 2-9-25

We had a very hard freeze in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas in mid January with temperatures dropping to the mid twenties and staying below freezing for ten hours.  Two weeks ago I went over to the National Butterfly Center and found most plants heavily damaged.  A couple of hours turned up only four species of butterflies.  A return yesterday after a couple of weeks of warm weather found things looking much better.  Despite the very dry conditions, plants are leafing out as they do in February down here.  White Brush and Elbo Bush were blooming and attracting butterflies.  Best of my 25 species was this fresh Angled Leafwing.  I wonder if it's an offspring from the ones we had last November.

Tropical Leafwings were also out.

I found five pecies of hairstreaks but missed the Lacey's seen the day before. Here's a Silver-banded Hairstreak.

This Clytie Ministreak was lacking the red pigments making me wonder if it was something more exotic.  Nothing from Mexico in the field guide matched it.  It's just a weird Clytie.

Here's a more normal winter form Clytie.

The Dusky-blue Goundstreaks were looking sharp.

Even the common Gray Hairstreaks were nice to see after the recent freeze.

Orange Sulphur is always one of the first spring butterflies across Texas.

So spring is on the way and things are looking up.

• Orange Sulphur 1
• Lyside Sulphur 5
• Little Yellow 5
• Silver-banded Hairstreak 1
• Gray Hairstreak 6
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 3
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 5
• Clytie Ministreak 4
• Ceraunus Blue 3
• Reakirt's Blue 6
• Fatal Metalmark 5
• American Snout 20
• Phaon Crescent 2
• Red Admiral 6
• Mexican Bluewing 2
• Tropical Leafwing 6
• Angled Leafwing 1
• Brown Longtail 1
• Funereal Duskywing 1
• White Checkered-Skipper 5
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 5
• Laviana White-Skipper 2
• Common Sootywing 1
• Southern Skipperling 1
• Fiery Skipper 1

Red-lined Scrub-Hairstreak at the NBC, 12/18/24

It's been a good fall for Red-lined Scrub-Hairstreaks in the lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas with half a dozen or more being reported at the National Butterfly Center.  Somehow I've manged to miss them all but yesterdaay I learned one had been present for a couple of days in the blooming Coma by the Conservatory.  So I spent quite a bit of time scrutinizing the tiny butterflies attracted to tiny but fragrant flowers.  Eventually I managed to pull out this scruffy specimen.  It might be the fourth I've ever seen.

Even scruffier was this poor Lantana Scrub-Hairstreak.

But this Dusky-blue Groundstreak was looking pretty sharp.

Mallow Scrub-Hairstreaks are everywhere.

Who doesn't like a Clytie Ministreak?  There were several in the Comma.

A Red-bordered Pixie hid on a nearby hackberry.

Walking the Hackberry Trail I found the long staying Gray Cracker on the same tree at the same spot posing at the same anlgle as a few days ago.

Here's a sharp Zebra Heliconian.

Nothing exciting in the the sunken gardens.  Best I could get was a Western Pygmy Blue.

The Discord "bonged".  A Pale-spotted Leafwing was on a bait log.  I hurried but just missed it by seconds.  Luckily it didn't go far.  What a striking specimen!

A cool front has dropped the temps into the sixties.  Not too bad.  Sometimes good stuff shows up after a front.  I've got my Christmas wish list!