East-Mexican Gemmed-Satyr, Fantastic Skipper at NBC, 12/23/25

Damn!  What a day!  

I didn't sleep well last night and wasn't sure what I was going to do today.  I finally decided I would just go to the Natioal Butterfly Center and look for Terry Mortier's Hoary Skipper.  It's been a few years since I've seen one.  Just as I was getting ready to leave the Discord bonged.  Terry had just found a Gemmed Satyr at the NBC.  Wow!  By Gemmed Satyr we mean Eastern Gemmed-Satyr.  I know Terry had seen a bunch of these in east Texas on his trip home to Wisconsin last summer.  There are a few RGV records.  I saw one years ago at Resaca de la Palma in Cameron County.  It would be a new species for my Hidalgo County list.

As I made the short drive over my mind speculated.  We are getting a lot of good butterflies from the south lately.  And there are other species of Gemmed-Satyr not far away in the mountains of Mexico.  Hmmm...  I parked and ran into the visitors center and ran out the back to the Hackberry Trail where I could see several people.  As I approched Terry said "You don't have to run.  It's just sitting there."  I quickly spotted the satyr eight feet away in the grass and fired a few shots.  Yup, I was right.  This was not an Eastern Gemmed-Satyr.  I told the group "I think we have a first US record."  More people showed up.  Stephanie came running with Glassberg's "Butterflies of Mexico".  

Discussion of the ID followed that continued on Discord, even into the night.  Glassberg says East-Mexican Gemmed-Satyr, Cyllopsis dospassosi, a species he predicted to occur in the RGV in an article in American Butterflies back in 2022.  But it does not have the strong dark blocking on the wing bands shown in his field guide.  But it has some.  Others were in the Cyllopsis nayarit camp.  And even Cyllopsis psuedopaphredo was getting votes.  Problem is these are all hard to identify, little known butterflies.  I posted on iNaturalist and Monterrey butterfly expert Ignacio Rodrigues agreed with dospassosi.  Needless to say this was another great lifer butterfly.

Meanwhile....  Normally rare Pavon Emperos were all over the place.  Ryan Rodriguez saw a dozen.  I saw seven.

This really bright female Pale-banded Crescent had me thinking about Black Crescent.

A Marius Hairstreak was ovipositing on Mexican Caesalpinnia.  They seem to not be too picky about host plants.

Then there was this hairstreak in the front garden.  I called it a Red-lined Scrub-Hairstreak and people were happy to see it.  But now I'm wondering if it's not the uber rare Bromiliad Scrub-Hairstreak.  All these rare butterflies have me suspicious of everything!

Curve-winged Metalmark?  This fall it's just a trash bug.

Then in the afternnoon I ran into botanist/birder Zach Johnson and we talked a bit.  A friend of his wandered up and casually mentioned there was was a Fantastic Skipper in front of the visitors center.  ????  "You shittin' me?"  He said that's what they're calling it.  I was by the big bird's nest at the time, a couple hundred yards away.  But I dug down deep and ran all the way, huffing and puffing by the time I got to the visitors center.  I ran through the building for the second time today.  Out front everyone was photographing something low by the duranta.

Fantastic Skipper is a butterfly I've been wanting to see for a long time.  Twenty years ago American Birding Association pioneer and birding guru Benton Basham got me into butterflies when he showed me a Mexican Silverspot at Santa Ana NWR.  (I already knew Benton from when I found him his lifer Crescent-chested Warbler in Patagonia, AZ a decade previously.)  I remember him showing me his business card which featured a photo of a Fantastic Skipper.  He had recently found the first record for the United States.  Maybe there's been one since then.  I don't know.  It's a first for the RGV on iNat.

Then there was another amazing Isabella Heliconian.  At least half a dozen for the park this year.

I made my way to the back garden one last time and finally found Terry's Hoary Skipper.

That's enough.  Two amazing lifer butterflies in one day!  And five this fall!  I don't think we're finished either.

Only 60 species today.

• Giant Swallowtail 1
• Checkered White 2
• Orange Sulphur 1
• Southern Dogface 2
• Large Orange Sulphur 5
• Lyside Sulphur 10
• Little Yellow 5
• Marius Hairstreak 1
• Silver-banded Hairstreak 3
• Gray Hairstreak 1
• Red-lined Scrub-Hairstreak 1
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 6
• Lantana Scrub-Hairstreak 4
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 4
• Western Pygmy-Blue 2
• Cassius Blue 1
• Ceraunus Blue 10
• Reakirt's Blue 1
• Fatal Metalmark 2
• Red-bordered Pixie 5
• Curve-winged Metalmark 2
• American Snout 10
• Gulf Fritillary 5
• Isabella's Heliconian 1
• Zebra Heliconian 3
• Bordered Patch 2
• Elada Checkerspot 1
• Texan Crescent 8
• Pale-banded Crescent 3
• Phaon Crescent 6
• American Lady 1
• Red Admiral 8
• White Peacock 3
• Band-celled Sister 1
• Mexican Bluewing 1
• Common Mestra 1
• Red Rim 2
• Tropical Leafwing 2
• Empress Leilia 1
• Tawny Emperor 1
• Pavon Emperor 7
• Monarch 4
• Queen 40
• Soldier 1
• East-Mexican Gemmed-Satyr  1

• White-striped Longtail 2
• Brown Longtail 1
• Hoary Skipper 1
• Funereal Duskywing 2
• White Checkered-Skipper 5
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 5
• Laviana White-Skipper 8
• Clouded Skipper 6
• Fiery Skipper 3
• Southern Broken-Dash 4
• Common Mellana 3
• Eufala Skipper 5
• Purple-washed Skipper 5
• Fantastic Skipper   1
• Mexican Crescent 2

Red-spotted Patch at NBC, 11/25/25

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.

Fantastic Day at NBC, 11/22/25

The Green-backed Ruby-eye was reported at sunset last night at the National Butterfly Center so I showed up early this morning to hopefully see this big crepuscular Mexican skipper.  This one has been showing well the past several morning for but only for a few minutes.  I'm usually eating breakfast when it's reported.  So a few other butterfly watchers and myself waited at the blooming esperanza hoping for the magical apparition but it was not to be.  I had to settle for a Curved-wing Metalmark.

Speaking of metalmarks, the Red-bordered Pixie explosion continues.  I probably saw over 30 of them today.

Several Red-bordered Metalmarks were out as well.  The metalark family Riodinidae has many spectacular butterflies in the tropics but only a few species occur north of the Mexican border.

 

Silver-banded Hairstreaks have been common lately.

I had turned off the sound on my Discord app butterfly alert as there were so many pointless coments being made and the app was sounding every few minutes.  So I was surprised when someone casually asked me if I had seen the Isabella Heliconian.  What the....?  I jumped in the jeep and raced to the front garden and there was a small crowd gathered around something.  It was a good something!  It's been a few years since I've seen one of these tropical beauties.

Then the Isabella's congener shows up.  After an absence of several months Zebra Heliconias are popping up across the Valley.

Many of the visiting butterfly watchers were missing as they had run off to Bentsen State park for a reported Banded Peacock.  Now they were racing back for the Isabella.  And guess what shows up.  A second Banded Pecock!  They were kicking themselves for the unneccessary trip.  This is a super fresh one.

Clytie Ministreaks were all over the place.

I headed back to the south garden.  It was a great morning but my two targets of Green-backed Ruby-eye and Hoary Skipper were no place to bee seen.  Chris Balboni found me this neat little diurnal flower moth.

I really like these Green Jewell Flies.

One last check of the front gardens before I quit.  I had turned my Discord app back on and it dinged reporting a Barred Yellow in front of the visitors center.  But my tired brain somehow transposed it into Orange-barred Sulphur.  So I raced over hoping for a good photo.  I saw the Indiana Gang gathered around a bush looking down taking photos.  

As I approached I yelled "Male or female?"  

They responded " I don't know."  How could they not know?  And how come I cant see it?  

"There it goes!"  How come I don't see this large brightly colored butterfly!

Terry Mortier went running after it looking downward.  How come I can't see it?

"Uhm... Because it's not a big Orange-barred Sulphur you dumbass.  It's a tiny Barred Yellow." I chided myself.  It's been over ten years since I've seen one and was lucky to get a photo.

The Barred Yellow got my juices flowing so I thought one last run of the Hackberry Trail bait logs would be in order.  I finally got the Red Rim.

My first Malachite for the day.

And back in the south garden by the rest rooms another Red rim and a Band-celled Sister.

What a day!  Usually two or three hours is enough for me.  I spent over seven and no doubt walked a few miles.