Amazing Summer Hairstreak Day at NBC, 6/3/26

 After doing some bee stuff for a couple of days I was back at the National Butterfly Center yesterday to get the June list going.  The new June Big Board was at 37 species for the month when I arrived and was at 60 when I finished so it was a pretty good day.  A little Common Sootywing out front got me off to a good start.

After signing in, I went out the back door to the garden and quickly found a striking fresh guava Skipper.

And then the hairstreak show started.  It's been a few months since the last Marius Hairstreak.

Likewise for this Ruddy Hairstreak.  I don't know why my photos were off on this one.

A common but still striking Gray Hairstreakwas nearby.

Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak is usually the most common.

My only Dusky-blue Groundstreak brought the morning hairstreak total to five species.  Pretty good for June.

I should be able to find a Clytie Ministeak.  And I did find one on the frostweed.

And then I found another ministreak but this one had a black eye and was missing some red spots.  Gray Ministreak!  There were two of them.  We had one just a month ago.  Hairstreak #7 for the day.

I put the Gray Ministreak on the Dischord alert and Stephanie came running after a bit.  It was a lifer for her.  She's usually too busy running the NBC to get to chase butterflies.  And while we were standing there by the frostweed this big stonking Clench's Greensteak magically appeared.  It was also a lifer for Stephanie.  I think we're up to at least eight of them in the last month.

Eight species of hairstreaks in June is pretty incredible.  I wanted more but got sidetracked by this Banded Cucumber Beetle.

Then a brief look at a Lantana Scrub-Hairstreak.  #9 for the day and all before lunch!.

After luch I thought there was a good possiblity for Silver-banded Hairstreak or Red-lined Scrub-Hairstreak in the balloon vine but it was not to be.  Red-bordered and Curve-winged Metalmarks were nice.

After lunch it gets hot fast and the humidity was stifling.  So I was done for the day.  Along with the nine hairstreaks I saw four species of blues whitch makes for a total of 13 Lycaenids!  I think that's my all time high.

Amazing 54 species!

• Giant Swallowtail 5
• Checkered White 20
• Great Southern White 6
• Large Orange Sulphur 6
• Lyside Sulphur +s
• Little Yellow 5
• Mimosa Yellow 1
• Dainty Sulphur 3
• Marius Hairstreak 1
• Clench's Greenstreak 1
• Gray Hairstreak 5
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 8
• Lantana Scrub-Hairstreak 1
• Ruddy Hairstreak 1
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 1
• Clytie Ministreak 3
• Gray Ministreak 2
• Western Pygmy-Blue 1
• Cassius Blue 5
• Ceraunus Blue 6
• Reakirt's Blue 1
• Red-bordered Metalmark 1
• Curve-winged Metalmark 3
• American Snout 2
• Gulf Fritillary 8
• Mexican Fritillary 3
• Bordered Patch 10
• Texan Crescent 20
• Pale-banded Crescent 10
• Phaon Crescent 8
• Red Admiral 1
• White Peacock 6
• Mexican Bluewing 5
• Tropical Leafwing 1
• Tawny Emperor 12
• Queen 12
• Soldier 6
• Guava Skipper 1
• Brown Longtail 6
• White Checkered-Skipper 4
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 10
• Desert Checkered-Skipper 1
• Laviana White-Skipper 5
• Common Sootywing 1
• Clouded Skipper 20
• Double-dotted Skipper 6
• Southern Skipperling 2
• Fiery Skipper 2
• Whirlabout 8
• Southern Broken-Dash 15
• Celia's Roadside-Skipper 12
• Eufala Skipper 8
• Purple-washed Skipper 1
• Mexican Crescent 15

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.

Old Hidalgo Pumphouse, 7/26/13

Yesterday Robin and Troy fround a couple of Gray Ministreaks along with lots of Clytie Ministreaks at the Old Hildalgo Pumphouse.  So I ran over today there hoping to see them.  However I got distracted by this little brown skipper with a couple of white dots on the underside of its hindwing.  I had it for just a few seconds but manged to fire off some shots.  Wow!  my first Double-dotted Skipper.  Well, not so fast.  After I got home, I looked at the pictures and noticed the white costal dashes of a Clouded Skipper.  Upon close examination it appears the double dots are actually on the underside of the forewing and are showing though a tear in the underwing.  At least that's the way I interpret it.  So it's just a Clouded Skipper?

There were literally dozens of tiny Clytie Ministreaks to pick through.  Some were quite guadily marked.

After a while Robin and Troy showed up along with Bill and Dottie and Robin had me on a Gray Ministreak in not time at all.

Then Troy got us all excited with this mystery hairstreak.  It was up in the sun and acting very un-Clytie-like.  But I think it was just another Clytie.  At that point I decided it was too hot and headed for home.