National Butterfly Center, 6/13/26

After a few days of editing photos I needed to get out and sweat so I ran over to the National Butterfly Center.  I was welcomed by this oddly marked Coyote (Skinner's) Cloudywing.  New for the June Big Board.  #77!

Only three species of hairstreaks today.  Here's a Dusky-blue Groundstreak.

Not a lot else going on in the front garden except for this Brazilian Skipper, my first for the year and #78 on the Big Board which is pretty good for June.

Again there were lots of Mexican Crescents around and no Vestas.  Something's going on.

In the back garden there were plenty of Mexican Bluewings.  Good to have them back in numbers.

Elada Checkerspots are back in their usual location around the restrooms.

And finally the Curve-winged Metamark show continues.  I saw seven today.

Supposed to be getting a good dose of rain in the next few days.  We can use it.

Today's list of 44 species.

• Pipevine Swallowtail 1
• Giant Swallowtail 4
• Checkered White 3
• Great Southern White 20
• Cloudless Sulphur 2
• Large Orange Sulphur 15
• Lyside Sulphur 25
• Little Yellow 8
• Dainty Sulphur 3
• Western Pygmy-Blue 1
• Cassius Blue 6
• Ceraunus Blue 2
• Red-bordered Metalmark 1
• Red-bordered Pixie 2
• Curve-winged Metalmark 7
• American Snout 2
• Gulf Fritillary 6
• Zebra Heliconian 1
• Bordered Patch 6
• Elada Checkerspot 10
• Texan Crescent 6
• Pale-banded Crescent 100
• Phaon Crescent 5
• White Peacock 4
• Mexican Bluewing 10
• Hackberry Emperor 1
• Queen 6
• Soldier 4
• White-striped Longtail 2
• Brown Longtail 6
• Coyote Cloudywing 1
• White Checkered-Skipper 5
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 12
• Laviana White-Skipper 3
• Julia's Skipper 1
• Clouded Skipper 6
• Double-dotted Skipper 4
• Southern Skipperling 5
• Whirlabout 6
• Southern Broken-Dash 8
• Celia's Roadside-Skipper 4
• Eufala Skipper 5
• Brazilian Skipper 1
• Mexican Crescent 10

National Butterfly Center, 5/31/26

I ran over to the National Butterfly Center on Sunday to see if I could add anything to the Big Board as we finished up May.  With the decent spring rain lots of stuff is still flying.  This spring is certainly more interesting than the past several dry springs.  A couple of husky Double-dotted Skippers in the front gardens were nice.  There have not been many around lately.

Some of the Ocherous Skippers (Nick Grishin has split our Clouded Skippers) were nearly as large.  The remaining Texas thistle blooms were popular.

Lots of Great Southern Whites around lately.

This female was ovipositing on some kind of pepper grass (not really a grass).

Female Tepanec Long-horned Bees are easy to ID with the black spot on the white band on T4.

A short drive to the south garden included a stop at the blooming Tenaza tree.  Lots of common butterflies here but best were a couple of cavorting Double-dotted Skippers.

Curve-winged Metalmarks were easy to find.  We had a bunch this past winter and they seemed to have raised babies.  I totalled five today.  Glassberg lists them as rare in is guide but not anymore.

Soldiers are back for the summer.

Mexican Crescents were mating in the Consevatory.  Meanwhile Vesta Crescents seem to be absent.  Have they been replaced by Mexican Crescents?

A walk of the bait logs turned up nothing rare but it was nice to see a few Mexican Bluewings.

Back in the front garden this Mournful Duskywing showed the tell tale white spots on its hind underwings.  iNaturalist's Ai missed on this a couple of weeks ago but got it right this time.

I love Red-bordered Metalmarks.

This ratty Long-tailed Skipper brought the May "Big Board" toatal to 92 species.  I think that's an all time high for May.

Looking good for June.

National Butterfly Center, 4/27/26

While I was on my west Texas trip, the Valley got some rain and things have really greened out.  But the spring bird migration has been really good so butterflies have taken a back seat.  Which is fine because I didn't feel like battling the mosquitos.  So Monday I finally got over to the National Butterfly Center and it was alive with flowers and butterflies.  Granted most of them were Lyside Sulphurs and Reakirt's Blues.

On the big board in the visitors center, I saw Ornythion Swallowtail had been reported among the healthy for April 63 species.  So that was my target as I headed for the Mexican Orchid bush in the south garden.  It didn't take long.  But getting a photo of this amorous male was close too impossible as he chased the female Western Giant Swallowtails.  This was the best I could do.

Western Giant Swallowtail.

Nearby I saw a Gray Hairstreak on a blooming fiddlewood.  But the color and luster seemed off so I fired at a shot at what I expected would be a Marius Hairstreak.  Wrong again!  It was a sharp really fresh Red-lined Scrub Hairstreak.  I've never seen one in spring.

Lots of Clytie Ministreaks out.

Good to see a couple of Curve-winged Metalmarks out.

All of the big whites were Great Southern White.

Marine Blue is uncommon in the RGV.

And then there were these.  We've gotten Mexican Crescent happy in the last year.  Are these Mexican Crescents?  Or are they female Vesta?  That spot in the middle of the pale jagged median band has me concerned.  But I just went on Butterflies of American and solved my problem.  These are both males.  Male Vesta is distinctly two toned black and orange.  These are two male Mexican Crescents.  I feel better now.  I think.

Distracting me from the butterflies were the bees.  Lots of species out today.  I saw a dozen or more species.  These two little cuckoo bees will give me something to study.  Triepeolus?  Epeolus?  I've never seen one with a red scutellum.  For reference the flower head of the Bidens is about 5-6mm wide.  (PS:  The first one is Epeolus interruptus.  Oddly there are scattered records across the country but the only three from Texas are in the Valley with none in Mexico.  This was the first for Hidalgo County.  I'm still working on the second.)

And a few Nomada cuckoo bees.  Cuckoo bees are kleptoparasites meaning they lay their eggs in the nest of another species know as the host species.  The larvae consume the host larvae.

I should be out playing today but I wanted to get caught up on some of this stuff.  Also going to be hot with bad air quality today.  Up river Laredo had hazardous air quality yesterday thanks to a thermal inversion.

Just Another Fantastic Day at the NBC, 12/13/25

Any other December this would be considered a pretty fantastic day.  But this year it's ho-humm.  Same old stuff.  I was telling Chris Balboni and Terry Mortier how spoiled we are.  They concurred.  After a two week absence, Ruby-spotted Swallowtails were back.

The cry "Malachite on the bait log!" usually brings people running.  With most of the visiting butterfly watchers gone, this one fed in peace.

Here's a fresh male Mexican Bluewing.  Not many of these guys around lately.

Yesterday's pristine Band-celled Sister now has a bite missing from the hind wings.  It's a dangerous world out there.

A formerly rare Mexican Crescent was on the tiny Tridax patch.

I am not a photographer.  I set my camera ISO from 400 to 1600, depending on light, and shift it into P Mode and let the old Canon 7D Mk II do all the thinking.  RAW?  What the hell is that?  It's JPEG all the way.  This works OK most of the time.  But she really stuggles with black and red as in a Red Rim.  The black makes it want to open for more light and then it doesn't know what to do with the red.  So here's pre and post editing.  I don't love it.

I really didn't like what I was seeing on the back of my camera while in the field.  So I desparately switched to C1 mode.  I don't know what is stored in that setting but it actually gave me a pretty realsitic color.  How about that!

Up front there were both Florida and Giant Whites.

Julias have been hard to come by this fall.

I walked the ditch a couple of times hoping for the Malicious (Northern Faceted) Skipper but had to settle for a Potrillo (Caballo) Skipper.

It was a really good December day with 61 species.  Usually we've had some cold weather by now and species totals are much lower.  A cool front comes in today.  But it's only supposed to drop into the 50's.  Full steam ahead!

Pipevine Swallowtail 1

• Ruby-spotted Swallowtail 2
• Florida White 1
• Checkered White 2
• Giant White 1
• Orange Sulphur 1
• Southern Dogface 3
• Cloudless Sulphur 1
• Large Orange Sulphur 8
• Lyside Sulphur 6
• Tailed Orange 2
• Little Yellow 6
• Marius Hairstreak 1
• Gray Hairstreak 1
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 3
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 3
• Western Pygmy-Blue 1
• Ceraunus Blue 6
• Reakirt's Blue 2
• Fatal Metalmark 2
• Red-bordered Pixie 6
• American Snout 20
• Gulf Fritillary 6
• Julia Heliconian 1
• Zebra Heliconian 3
• Mexican Fritillary 8
• Bordered Patch 4
• Texan Crescent 3
• Pale-banded Crescent 2
• Vesta Crescent 1
• Phaon Crescent 12
• American Lady 1
• Red Admiral 10
• Common Buckeye 1
• White Peacock 3
• Malachite 1
• Band-celled Sister 1
• Mexican Bluewing 2
• Common Mestra 1
• Red Rim 2
• Tropical Leafwing 8
• Empress Leilia 5
• Tawny Emperor 8
• Monarch 5
• Queen 40
• Soldier 2
• White-striped Longtail 2
• Brown Longtail 3
• Potrillo Skipper 1
• White Checkered-Skipper 8
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 8
• Laviana White-Skipper 8
• Clouded Skipper 10
• Southern Skipperling 2
• Fiery Skipper 8
• Whirlabout 2
• Sachem 1
• Common Mellana 1
• Eufala Skipper 6
• Purple-washed Skipper 1
• Mexican Crescent 1