Santa Ana NWR, 5/30/23

With all the recent rain I thought a trip to Santa Ana NWR was in order.  Trails were muddy so I walked the tour road to the cemetery.  Things are pretty lush but not a lot was blooming except at the cemetery where I found this Potrillo Skipper.  I had seen them there in the past but a check of my records found my last one was 5/31/15.  Almost the same date eight years ago.

Nearby was this Texas Powdered Skipper.  I found my lifer at Santa ana years ago.

A group of 25 Laviana White-Skippers were sucking at the moist soil.

Along with a Mimosa Yellow.

Checking the piles of animal scat can always be productive.  Here's a Sickle-winged Skipper and a Texan Crescent.

Here's today's list of 31 species.  Gotta get back over there in a couple of weeks.

• Giant Swallowtail 6
• Great Southern White 1
• Southern Dogface 1
• Large Orange Sulphur 2
• Lyside Sulphur 40
• Little Yellow 3
• Mimosa Yellow 1
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 1
• Clytie Ministreak 1
• Reakirt's Blue 2
• Red-bordered Metalmark 1
• American Snout 3
• Gulf Fritillary 2
• Variegated Fritillary 1
• Bordered Patch 2
• Texan Crescent 12
• Vesta Crescent 15
• White Peacock 3
• Common Mestra 25
• Queen 1
• White-striped Longtail 1
• Brown Longtail 2
• Potrillo Skipper 1
• Texas Powdered-Skipper 1
• Sickle-winged Skipper 6
• White Checkered-Skipper 1
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 1
• Laviana White-Skipper 30
• Clouded Skipper 2
• Whirlabout 1
• Celia's Roadside-Skipper 3

Sal del Rey, 11/7/15

This week I've led two birding trips up to Sal del Rey off of Brushline Road north of TX 186.  We walked in to the salt lake along a road used by water trucks that transport brine pumped from the lake to be used in the gas well fracking.  Along the way we had some pretty good butterflies.  This was my first East Mexican White-Skipper for this year.

We actually saw all four of the south Texas white-skippers.  Here's Erichson's.

And here's Turk's-cap White-Skipper and the more common Laviana White-Skipper.

A few weeks earlier I had walked this road and had seen lots of globemallow which had been absent during our prolonged drought.  Globemallow is the host plant for Red-crescent Scrub-Hairstreak and they were out today.

I would like to have spent more time with the butterflies but this was a birding trip.  I'll have to get back up here in a few days.

National Butterfly Center, 9/13/13

A low pressure system in the Gulf was sending northeast winds and clouds to the National Butterfly Center resulting in a bit less activity than my last visit, but there was still stuff to see.  It had been months since my last Lantana Scrub-Hairstreak.  This one was in the garden behind the visitors center.

In the same garden was an Urbanus that proved to be the expected Long-tailed Skipper.

Caterpillars have been hard to find in the RGV during our prolonged drought.  Here's a Tropical Leafwing larva feeding on Croton.

I wrestled with this white skipper trying to turn it into a non-Laviana/Turk's Cap but I lost.  It's just a Laviana White-Skipper.

The Brush Holley is in bloom again and I checked it out for daggerwings.  Sure enough there was a worn Ruddy Daggerwing hiding inside.

Last time I posted a photo of a very colorful White Peacock.  Here is the dorsal view of the same individual.

A Mexican Fritillary was trying to mate with this Variegated Fritillary.