Progreso Lakes, 3/16/20

Spent the morning birding and working in our yard at Progreso Lakes.  After lunch I decided to check out the butterfly situation.  It was warm and windy with a little sun.  I was happy to find an ovipositing Gulf Fritillary on our Corky-stemmed Passionvine.

And then a white in our bottlebrush turned out to be a Giant White.

I lost it as it flew around the tree but then I found an Orange-barred Sulphur.   Usually non-native plants are not good at attracting our local butterflies, but they make an exception for the Australian bottlebrush.

Pretty good so far.  Then a bright yellow quarter-sized butterfly got my attention.  As I expected it was a Boisduval's Yellow.  And I soon found a second.  Aside from Resaca de la Palma and Sabal Palm Sanctuary, our yard seems to be the best spot for them.

This Western Giant Swallowtail was earlier seen ovipositing on our Texas Torchwood and Colima.  It even checked out our lemon tree.

This Pipevine Swallowtail was ovipositing on our Giant Duchman's Pipvine.  I've heard their caterpillars can't survive the toxins in this South American plant.  I'm hoping our Pipevine Swallowtails are tropical enough that maybe they have some resistance.  We will see.

Progreso Lakes, 10/14/17

A warm humid day with a breeze but not the strong winds that we often get ahead of a cold front, turned out to be pretty good for butterflies in our Progreso Lakes yard.  Here's some photos.

Best butterfly goes to the two Giant whites.

I always like the crazy eyes on Red-bordered Metalmarks.

Looks like another Goatweed Leafwing to me.

A Western Giant Swallowtail oviposited on my Colima and then got harassed by amorous males.

Lots of common species helped run our yard total for the day to 45, a new high.

• Giant Swallowtail 3
• Giant White 2
• Cloudless Sulphur 8
• Large Orange Sulphur 2
• Tailed Orange 1
• Little Yellow 3
• Mimosa Yellow 2
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 2
• Cassius Blue 3
• Ceraunus Blue 4
• Rounded Metalmark 2
• Red-bordered Metalmark 4
• Red-bordered Pixie 1
• Gulf Fritillary 1
• Bordered Patch 3
• Vesta Crescent 2
• Phaon Crescent 3
• Pearl Crescent 3
• Painted Lady 2
• White Peacock 7
• Goatweed Leafwing 1
• Carolina Satyr 1
• Monarch 1
• Queen 25
• Soldier 2
• Brown Longtail 5
• Mimosa Skipper 1
• Sickle-winged Skipper 6
• White-patched Skipper 2
• Mournful Duskywing 3
• White Checkered-Skipper 4
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 6
• Laviana White-Skipper 6
• Turk's-cap White-Skipper 2
• Julia's Skipper 1
• Fawn-spotted Skipper 3
• Clouded Skipper 15
• Southern Skipperling 6
• Fiery Skipper 8
• Whirlabout 2
• Southern Broken-Dash 3
• Common Mellana 1
• Celia's Roadside-Skipper 3
• Eufala Skipper 5
• Olive-clouded Skipper 1

Santa Ana NWR, 3/24/15

Mike Rickard has seen some good butterflies lately at Santa Ana NWR so I ran over there a couple of days ago to check things out.  There's still lots of blooming azureun and the vervain is putting on a good show along the tour road near the cemetery.

Saw my first Two-barred Flasher for the year.

Guava Skippers put on a good show last fall at Santa Ana and they're back again this spring.

A Pipevine Swallowtail enjoying the vervain.

Thistle seems to be sprouting everywhere this spring.  I think the winter rain on ground that was barren because of the long drought provided good conditions for the seeds to sprout.  A common Mellana is nectaring on the thistle bloom.

This was my first Tamaulipan Clubtail for the year.  They will be out along the river for the next couple of months.

Hope he doesn't get eaten by this guy.

• Pipevine Swallowtail 2
• Giant Swallowtail 12
• Checkered White 2
• Southern Dogface 2
• Lyside Sulphur 8
• Little Yellow 2
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 4
• Fatal Metalmark 1
• Red-bordered Metalmark 1
• Bordered Patch 4
• Vesta Crescent 3
• Phaon Crescent 50
• Pearl Crescent 6
• American Lady 6
• Red Admiral 20
• Mexican Bluewing 1
• Empress Leilia 5
• Carolina Satyr 5
• Guava Skipper 2
• Two-barred Flasher 1
• Funereal Duskywing 8
• White Checkered-Skipper 5
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper30
• Laviana White-Skipper 10
• Common Sootywing 1
• Fawn-spotted Skipper 1
• Clouded Skipper 4
• Fiery Skipper 10
• Whirlabout 1
• Southern Broken-Dash 1
• Common Mellana 1
• Celia's Roadside-Skipper 3
• Eufala Skipper 8

National Butterfly Center, 7/18/13

Checked out the NBC today to see if any of the recently reported good stuff was still around.  Dot immediately put me onto the brush holly that has been hosting a number of daggerwings.  As the day progressed the count increased to three Ruddy Daggerwings and three Many-banded Daggerwings.

This beat up Zilpa Longtail went misidentified (thanks to me) during the day but Dot got us straightened out.  It's been a couple of years since I've seen one.

This Gray Cracker has been hanging around for a while.

With it's wings up, I did not recognize this White-patched Skipper.

A pretty nice Giant Swallowtail.

And a Whirlabout.

Estero Llano Grande State Park, 2/25/13

Today at Estero Llano Grande State Park in Weslaco, Rick Snider and I found this very colorful crescent.  We tried to turn it into Chestnut Crescent Phyciodes (Anthanassa) argentea but the underside of the forewings is orange like a Texan Crescent P. texana and the forewing white spots seem to agree.  But the hind upperwing is pretty funky.

There were plenty of regular Texans about.  And I don't mean the loud braggadocius kind.

Saw a couple of Celia's Roadside Skippers Amblyscirtes celia.

A brilliant Giant Swallowtail Papilio cresphontes.