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  Have they been replaced by Mexican Crescents?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.

Guatemalan Cracker at NBC, 8/24/25

Yesterday Tom Forwood found a Gautemalan Cracker at the National Butterfly Center.  Tom is the new Superintendent at nearby Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park and is a fine naturalist.  I ran over and Alex told me where to look.  It took about a minute to find the Guatemalan Cracker in the row of Retama trees where it was feeding on sap.  The common name comes from the specific epithet guatemalena.  Many butterfly common names are Anglicizations of the the Latin name.

The Brown-banded Skipper was still hanging out by the old visitors center.

Long-tailed skippers are finally showing after a long absense.  Here's White-striped Longtail,  Long-tailed Skipper and Brown Longtail.

This Red-bordered Pixie was not doing a very good of hiding under this leaf.  Many of the brightly colored tropical metalmarks can be found hiding under leaves,

Finally a White Peacock after months without seeing one.

Mexican Fritillaries were out.

I guess this is just a Common Mellana.  It was down in the "ditch" in the shade, atypical of where I usually see it up in the flowers.  But nothing else in the Mexican guide seems to fit.

Last butterfly of the day was this fresh Mournful Duskywing.

The Valley has gotten some rain this past weeks and it's cooled off a tiny bit.  It feels like fall!

• Pipevine Swallowtail 3
• Giant Swallowtail 5
• Southern Dogface 1
• Large Orange Sulphur 15
• Lyside Sulphur 10
• Little Yellow 5
• Gray Hairstreak 1
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 3
• Ceraunus Blue 8
• Fatal Metalmark 2
• Red-bordered Pixie 1
• American Snout 10
• Gulf Fritillary 8
• Mexican Fritillary 3
• Bordered Patch 10
• Phaon Crescent 20
• White Peacock 1
• Mexican Bluewing 8
• Guatemalan Cracker 1
• Tropical Leafwing 8
• Tawny Emperor 15
• Queen 8
• White-striped Longtail 1
• Long-tailed Skipper 1
• Brown Longtail 5
• Brown-banded Skipper 1
• White-patched Skipper 1
• Mournful Duskywing 1
• White Checkered-Skipper 6
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 20
• Laviana White-Skipper 6
• Clouded Skipper 6
• Southern Skipperling 1
• Whirlabout 2
• Southern Broken-Dash 2
• Common Mellana 2
• Celia's Roadside-Skipper 6
• Eufala Skipper 5

Progreso Lakes, 2/28/20

Despite the past two mornings dipping into the 30's there have been butterflies about and Mike Rickard recorded 65 species at the National Butterfly Center yesterday.  So I put a little effort into our Progreso Lakes yard today and was rewarded with 36 species.  Star of the day was our first Coyote Cloudywing, butterfly #120.  Coyote Cloudywing is pretty common out west at Falcon State Park but hard to get in eastern Hidalgo County.  So I wasn't sure how long it would take to record the species in our yard.  This was a really fresh one that only hung around for about a minute.

I was photographing this White-striped Longtail when the coudywing popped in.

There were both Mournful and Funerial Duskywings.

It's been a while since I've seen any Sachems.  We had two today.

We don't get Orange Sulphur very often.

This Gray Hairstreak was fresh and nicely marked.

Otherwise it was just a lot of common stuff today.  So here's a photo of a Red-bordered Pixie from a few day ago.

Here's today's list.

• Checkered White 2
• Orange Sulphur 1
• Southern Dogface 2
• Cloudless Sulphur 2
• Large Orange Sulphur 2
• Little Yellow 3
• Sleepy Orange 2
• Gray Hairstreak 1
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 1
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 2
• Texan Crescent 3
• Vesta Crescent 4
• Phaon Crescent 3
• Red Admiral 1
• White Peacock 1
• Carolina Satyr 4
• Monarch 2
• Queen 4
• White-striped Longtail 1
• Brown Longtail 4
• Coyote Cloudywing 1
• Mournful Duskywing 1
• Funereal Duskywing 1
• White Checkered-Skipper 8
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 6
• Laviana White-Skipper 3
• Julia's Skipper 1
• Fawn-spotted Skipper 1
• Clouded Skipper 3
• Southern Skipperling 3
• Fiery Skipper 5
• Whirlabout 1
• Southern Broken-Dash 2
• Sachem 2
• Common Mellana 1
• Eufala Skipper 3

National Butterfly Center, 7/19/15

Today I joined Mike and Ginny for the NABA butterfly count at the National Butterfly Center.  The heat, lack of rain and an influx of dragonflies have really knocked down the number of butterflies.  But compared to last year at this time, there's still quite a bit of interesting stuff around.  This male Silver Emperor is a real knockout.

Luciano found this Mournful Duskywing which was our only one for the day.

I found this crescent which I showed to Mike and he IDed it as a Vesta Crescent.  I thought it was a female Pearl but after checking it out once I got home, I can see that Mike was right.

There's still a Two-barred Flasher hanging on in the ditch.

Mike interrupted my lunch with this Malachite and another Silver Emperor.

My last addition for the day was this Brown-banded Skipper.

I finished with 41 species for the day and I know Mike and Ginny had another half dozen or more that I missed.

• Giant Swallowtail 2
• Great Southern White 5
• Cloudless Sulphur 2
• Large Orange Sulphur 2
• Lyside Sulphur 8
• Little Yellow 1
• Mimosa Yellow 6
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 4
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 3
• Ceraunus Blue 1
• American Snout 1
• Gulf Fritillary 7
• Julia Heliconian 1
• Zebra Heliconian 2
• Mexican Fritillary 1
• Bordered Patch 15
• Crimson Patch 8
• Texan Crescent 2
• Pale-banded Crescent 1
• Vesta Crescent 1
• Phaon Crescent 8
• White Peacock 1
• Banded Peacock 2
• Malachite 1
• Tropical Leafwing 8
• Tawny Emperor 150
• Silver Emperor 2
• Queen 35
• Soldier 1
• White-striped Longtail 2
• Brown Longtail 8
• Two-barred Flasher 1
• Brown-banded Skipper 1
• Mournful Duskywing 1
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 8
• Laviana White-Skipper 6
• Common Sootywing 1
• Fawn-spotted Skipper 4
• Southern Skipperling 3
• Whirlabout 1
• Eufala Skipper 2

National Butterfly Center, 2/21/14

With all the cold weather we've had this winter, it's been difficult to see ten species of butterflies.  But it got really hot yesterday with a strong southerly wind, followed by a weak cold front last night so I thought today might be a good day at the National Butterfly Center.  Turns out I was right.  The weather was perfect and I saw 43 species of butterflies, many new for the year.  Exciting for me was my first Goatweed Leafwing.  I think I've seen it before up north but it was my first for the Valley.

The rest of 'em were among our more common species.  I guess this beat up female Black Swallowtail was less common.

If Clouded Skippers were rare, we would get all excited about them.  The winter form is pretty sharp looking.

Many of our butterflies have a tropical look to them, but Orange Sulphur looks like something you would see up north.

Even during some pretty cold days this winter you could still find a Red Admiral.

Our two duskywings, Funerial and Mournful, often present ID problems.  Today all I saw at the NBC were Funerial Duskywing.

When I got home, the first thing I saw in the garden was a couple of Mournful Duskywings.  They are really different.