East Texas Butterflies, 4/15-16/25

After spending the winter butterflying the Rio Grande Valley, Terry Mortier has been working his way home with time spent in east Texas.  His recent posts on the NABA Facebook group included a number of east Texas butterfly species I have never seen.  So I made a run up to Jasper to see what I could find.  Checking iNaturalist I saw Terry found a number of species around Indian Mounds camp ground east of Hemphill in eastern Sabine county.  One species I really wanted was the Lace-winged Roadside-skipper.  This well marked small skipper uses giant cane as a host plant, something I was not seeing as I explored the area.  The dry conditions with not much blooming was making for a slow morning.

As I approched the campground I saw a dirt track leading off CR 83 signed with an arrow pointing to Butler Point.  As I drove this road through the pines I started to see a few flowers and butterflies which were mostly common Carolina Satyrs and Little Wood Satyrs.  And then I saw a larger satyr; my lifer Creole Pearly Eye!

Then I saw another satyr that seemed larger than the Carolina Satyrs and flew differently.  It was the first of several Gemmed Satyrs.  My only previous Gemmed Satyr was one yeras ago at Resaca de la Palma.

As I walked the dirt track a little skipper popped up.  It sat on a leaf facing me but at enough of an angle that I scould see some pattern on its wings.  I fired the camera and couldn't believe what I saw.  It was a striking Lace-winged Roadside-Skipper.  I saw several later on and then noticed the bamboo growing in the area.

A flash of orange was a beat up Goatweed Leafwing.

A tiny rusty colored butterfly drifted down from the pine above and landed on the road.  Pine Elfin was a lifer for me just a year ago near Livingston, TX.

Then I saw another larger satyr.  This one turned out to be a Southern Pearly Eye.  My only other one was with Tom Pendleton back in 2011 when we made a dragonfly run to Boykin Springs.

A dark grass skipper proved to be a Dun skipper.

A beat up Red-banded Hairstreak.

Then I saw a medium sized dark brown butterfly with coppery band on the forewing and a flash of white below.  My first though was Silver-spotted SKipper.  I quickly shot a photo and was happy to get my lifer Hoary Edge.  That was another one I really wanted.

I returned to CR 83 and headed toward Indian Mounds camp ground.  At an intersection a cloudywing bounced from flower to flower.  I shot a few photos and assumed it was the usual Northern Cloudywing.  But after I returned home, I entered it into iNaturalist and AI's first choice was confused Cloudywing.  According to Glassberg, Confused Cloudywing can be lightly marked like a Northern but has a more distinct white eye line.  The jury is still out on this one but I'm hoping for a lifer Confused cloudywing.  It sure looks like some of the photos on BOA.

After a good afternoon I blew off the campground and headed into Hemphill for some dinner.  The next morning I was torn between going to Boykin Springs where I didn't really have any target species although I knew habitat would be good or spending another day to the east along the Sabine River.  I chose the later hoping to come across a Twin-spot Skipper even though iNat only showd two records for Texas for this southern skipper.  I was intrigued by a location on the map shown as the Wild Azalia Canyon Trail.  Turned out the trail had been overgrown for years and the surrounding area had been heavily logged.  And it was really dry.  After an uneventful morning I stopped at a small stream crossing for lunch.  I got an American Lady.

And then another Dun Skipper.

And then another small dark skipper.  What the hell.  It reminded me of a Eufala Skipper but lacked the bold eyebrow.  Julia's skipper?  Are they up here?  I took some shots and uon returning home I spent some time with the books.  Turns out I had completely forgotten about Swarthy Skipper, another Nastra species like Julia's.  Another lifer!

At this point I decided to run over to Martin Dies State Park and feed the mosquitos,  I soon came across a Red-spotted Admiral.

And Little Wood Satyr.

I was sure this black caterpillar was a butterfly but I was wrong.  It's an Eastern Buck Moth.

I probably should have spent another day but I wasn't feeling well so I headed on back to the RGV.  I don't particularly care for the east Texas piney woods.  I always feel some local is going to come up behind me with a shot gun and ask me to "squeel like a pig."  But there's a few more butterflies I need over there so I guess I'll go back some day.

More Elfins near Huntsville, 3/28/24

A few weeks ago I ran up to San Antonio to find my lifer Henry's Elfin.  Since then I've been wanting to see more elfins and have been studying iNaturalist for possibilities.  Eastern Pine Elfin used to occur in the Lost Pines near Bastrop but there's only one record since the big fire.  The next closest possiblity seemd to be the Sam Houston Forest Wildlife Management Area by Huntsville and there were also records of Frosted Elfin in the area.  The next thing I had to do was keep an eye on the weather.  Cold fronts preceded by warm days have been the pattern and I needed to go soon because these butterflies are only around for a short time in early spring.  I finally got a favorable weather forecast at a time I could get away so I made a quick run up there.

I decided to try County Line Road first as it seemed to pass through good pine forest habitat.  It was a cold clear morning but warmed up fast and soon butterflies were nectaring on the early spring blooms.  Problem was I really had no idea how to search for elfins.  The Henry's Elfins in San Antonio were a stakeout at a lone scraggily red bud in a city park.  This was different as I had thousands of acres  to search but no experience to guide me.  So I just looked for butterflies on the flowers.  The Spicebush Swallowtails were my first for Texas.  In fact at first I was passing them off as Black Swallowtails.  They use sassafrass as a host plant.

I was hoping for duskywings and this fresh Juvenal's Duskywing did not disappoint.

But other duskywings were more worn and I'm not sure of the ID's but I think they may also be Juvenal's but I can't rule out Horace's..

Grass skippers included the common Clouded, Fiery and Huron Sachem (split from Sachem recently).

My first butterfly of the day was this Little Wood Satyr.

I found several small satyrs and hoped for the newly described Intricate Satyr but I think they were all Carolina Satyrs.

Then as I was walking along a damp sandy side track I saw a small dark butterfly flush from the ground and move ahead of me to land again.  I thought it was another satyr and was going to ignore it but I raised the camera and looked though it and was amazed that the small dark butterfly was infact an Eastern Pine Elfin.  I chased it quite a ways down the sandy track and got a few shots but nothing great.  But what a cool butterfly!

Then I remembered that most of  photos of Eastern Pine Elfin I had seen on iNaturalist were of indiviuals on the ground.  At one point another small butterfly interacted with this one and it proved to be my lifer Red-banded Hairstreak.  I was hoping to see one.

Then I flushed another small butterfly and expeced another Easterrn Pine Elfin but I was pleasantly surprised to find it was a Frosted Elfin.  It posed for a while.

During the rest of the day a few more small dark butterflies flushed from the ground but they shot straight up into the pines not to be seen again.  I guess they were getting minerals from the damp sand.  Anyway I was happy to have scored on my two targets.  Otherwise it was just common stuff around.  I was surprised to see so many Goatweed Leafwings.

The Red-spotted Purple is now the Red-spotted Admiral as it has been lumped with the White Admiral.  This is the eastern subspecies.  I've seen the western subspecies at Big Bend.

This Eastern Giant Swallowtail was a Texas lifer I think.  The ones we have in the RGV are Western.  Nick Grishin made this split a few year ago.

There's still more east Texas butterflies I need to see but it's too early in the spring.  So I will make another trip in a few weeks for southeastern hairstreaks and skippers.  I finished the trip with three lifers and two more Texas lifers.