Ruddy Hairstreak at NBC, 2-12-25

I had stuff to do today but Mary Beth Stowe found a Mourning Cloak at the National Butterfly Center so I changed plans.  I never found it but as it turned out it was a good day to be there ahead of the approaching cold front.  The elbo bushes had quit blooming but white brush and baby bonnets took up the slack.  Pride of place (I like this old British term) goes to this sharp little Ruddy Hairstreak.  Males are easy to ID if you can see the orange upper wing surfce.  Females are dull above and identical to Muted Hairstreak.  The little guy was flashing orange!

Common Streaky Skippers have appeared out of nowhere.  I saw three today.

Mazan's Scallopwing is not common at the NBC.  Resaca de la Palma is a better place to find it.

My first Goatweed Leafwing for 2025.

This is most likely a female Orange Sulphur but I'm not sure how you could rule out Clouded Sulphur.  I like the pink overtones.

Texan Crescents were out.

The other note worthy event today was the return of the native bees.  Identification is a challenge but iNaturalist helps.  I think this is the Texas Nomad Bee, a kleptoparasite of some of the little Andrena mining bees.

Female Texas Agopostemn is hairy compared to the other green sweat bees.

And I haven't figured out this dark little sweat bee.  Not finding anything like it online.

Here's today's list of 35 species.

• Black Swallowtail 1
• Orange Sulphur 2
• Lyside Sulphur 6
• Little Yellow 3
• Sleepy Orange 1
• Silver-banded Hairstreak 1
• Gray Hairstreak 5
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 2
• Ruddy Hairstreak 1
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 2
• Western Pygmy-Blue 1
• Reakirt's Blue 4
• Fatal Metalmark 3
• American Snout 10
• Bordered Patch 1
• Texan Crescent 3
• Phaon Crescent 5
• Pearl Crescent 1
• Red Admiral 6
• White Peacock 1
• Mexican Bluewing 2
• Tropical Leafwing 5
• Goatweed Leafwing 1
• Mazans Scallopwing 1
• Funereal Duskywing 2
• White Checkered-Skipper 8
• Laviana White-Skipper 2
• Common Streaky-Skipper 3
• Clouded Skipper 1
• Southern Skipperling 2
• Fiery Skipper 2
• Sachem 2
• Common Mellana 2
• Celia's Roadside-Skipper 2
• Eufala Skipper 1

Angled Leafwing at National Butterfly Center, 2-9-25

We had a very hard freeze in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas in mid January with temperatures dropping to the mid twenties and staying below freezing for ten hours.  Two weeks ago I went over to the National Butterfly Center and found most plants heavily damaged.  A couple of hours turned up only four species of butterflies.  A return yesterday after a couple of weeks of warm weather found things looking much better.  Despite the very dry conditions, plants are leafing out as they do in February down here.  White Brush and Elbo Bush were blooming and attracting butterflies.  Best of my 25 species was this fresh Angled Leafwing.  I wonder if it's an offspring from the ones we had last November.

Tropical Leafwings were also out.

I found five pecies of hairstreaks but missed the Lacey's seen the day before. Here's a Silver-banded Hairstreak.

This Clytie Ministreak was lacking the red pigments making me wonder if it was something more exotic.  Nothing from Mexico in the field guide matched it.  It's just a weird Clytie.

Here's a more normal winter form Clytie.

The Dusky-blue Goundstreaks were looking sharp.

Even the common Gray Hairstreaks were nice to see after the recent freeze.

Orange Sulphur is always one of the first spring butterflies across Texas.

So spring is on the way and things are looking up.

• Orange Sulphur 1
• Lyside Sulphur 5
• Little Yellow 5
• Silver-banded Hairstreak 1
• Gray Hairstreak 6
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 3
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 5
• Clytie Ministreak 4
• Ceraunus Blue 3
• Reakirt's Blue 6
• Fatal Metalmark 5
• American Snout 20
• Phaon Crescent 2
• Red Admiral 6
• Mexican Bluewing 2
• Tropical Leafwing 6
• Angled Leafwing 1
• Brown Longtail 1
• Funereal Duskywing 1
• White Checkered-Skipper 5
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 5
• Laviana White-Skipper 2
• Common Sootywing 1
• Southern Skipperling 1
• Fiery Skipper 1

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

Glazed Pellicia at NBC, 10/16/14

My goal today at the National Butterfly Center was to see 50 species of butterflies.  I got 55 so it was a pretty good day.  The best one was found by my spiritual guru Mike Rickard, a Glazed Pellicia Pellicia arina.  I saw one in Panama last year and one at the NBC seven years ago and that's about it so I was happy to see it and get a few not so great photos.

There were a few other pretty good ones but nothing great.  Here's a Nysa Roadside-Skipper.

This Julia is so beat up it caused some confusion.

Guava Skippers are popping up all over the Valley.

Orange Sulphur is a common butterfly that is pretty uncommon at the NBC.

Fawn-spotted Skippers were common after being rare for months.

It's been a while since I've seen a Tailed Orange.

Here's a Silver-banded Hairstreak.

The best Ode was this Twelve-spotted Skimmer, only my second for the RGV.

Today's list of 55 species.

• Pipevine Swallowtail 2
• Checkered White 2
• Orange Sulphur 1
• Southern Dogface 6
• Cloudless Sulphur 2
• Large Orange Sulphur 5
• Lyside Sulphur 8
• Tailed Orange 1
• Little Yellow 10
• Sleepy Orange 1
• Silver-banded Hairstreak 1
• Gray Hairstreak 4
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 5
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 1
• Western Pygmy-Blue 40
• Ceraunus Blue 10
• Fatal Metalmark 5
• Red-bordered Pixie 1
• American Snout 20
• Gulf Fritillary 6
• Julia Heliconian 1
• Zebra Heliconian 6
• Elada Crescent 1
• Vesta Crescent 3
• Phaon Crescent 15
• Red Admiral 1
• White Peacock 6
• Tropical Leafwing 3
• Empress Leilia 1
• Tawny Emperor 100
• Carolina Satyr 1
• Monarch 4
• Queen 1000
• Soldier 3
• Guava Skipper 1
• Brown Longtail 3
• Glazed Pellicia 1
• Sickle-winged Skipper 2
• Funereal Duskywing 2
• White Checkered-Skipper 20
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 10
• Laviana White-Skipper 10
• Common Sootywing 3
• Julia's Skipper 4
• Fawn-spotted Skipper 10
• Clouded Skipper 30
• Southern Skipperling 5
• Fiery Skipper 50
• Whirlabout 1
• Southern Broken-Dash 4
• Sachem 4
• Common Mellana 1
• Nysa Roadside-Skipper 1
• Celia's Roadside-Skipper 8
• Eufala Skipper 8