National Butterfly Center, 4/16/17

Spent a couple of hours this afternoon at the National Butterfly Center while Honey was shopping.  The best I could find in the gardens up front was this Purple-washed Skipper showing its special spot.

Cyna Blues are still holding on.  They tend to disappear as the summer heats up.

Nothing else too noteworthy up front other than the Soldiers are back.

Down south in the old gardens not much was going on.  I found a nice Clytie Ministreak in the Conservatory.

Then I decided it was time to brave the mosquitoes and venture down into the "gully" to try one more time for Gilbert's Flasher.  they had not been reported in a while but you never know.  Well I didn't find one but this Pearly-gray Hairstreak was a nice surprise substitute.

Then I ran into Mike Rickard and it did not take him long to find me a nice butterfly.  A Clench's Green streak was nectaring in the orchid tree which I had checked minutes earlier.  It was nice to gt a shot of the brown frons.  The similar Tropical Greenstreak has a green forehead.

Not too bad for a couple of hours to kill.

National Butterfly Center, 1/5/17

Temperature was forecast to hit 80 today followed by 40s tomorrow so I figured it would be a good day to check out the National Butterfly Center.  Definitely the bug of the day was this Pearly-gray Hairstreak.  I've seen three before but this was the first I've ever found and recognized on my own.  It was smaller than the ones I've seen before but still the same bright blue above.

There are still plenty of great uncommon butterflies around despite our earlier cold weather.  Can say "no" to Malachites.

A ragged Florida White was popular with the visiting butterfliers from up north.

As were the two Curve-winged Metalmarks.

And the Julia Heliconians.

But I enjoy the common up north bugs that we don't see all the time like American Lady and Questionmark.

This Common Buckeye has a lot of orange on it like a Mangrove Buckeye.

56 species on the 5th of January aint bad!

• Pipevine Swallowtail 1
• Black Swallowtail 1
• Florida White 1
• Checkered White 3
• Great Southern White 2
• Southern Dogface 4
• Large Orange Sulphur 8
• Lyside Sulphur 8
• Little Yellow 15
• Mimosa Yellow 1
• Dainty Sulphur 1
• Gray Hairstreak 6
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 10
• Lantana Scrub-Hairstreak 2
• Pearly-gray Hairstreak 1
• Cassius Blue 5
• Cyna Blue 1
• Ceraunus Blue 1
• Reakirt's Blue 10
• Red-bordered Pixie 7
• Curve-winged Metalmark 2
• Falcate Metalmark 5
• American Snout 50
• Gulf Fritillary 5
• Julia Heliconian 3
• Zebra Heliconian 6
• Mexican Fritillary 8
• Crimson Patch 3
• Pale-banded Crescent 1
• Phaon Crescent 10
• Question Mark 1
• American Lady 1
• Red Admiral 12
• Common Buckeye 6
• White Peacock 10
• Banded Peacock 1
• Malachite 1
• Common Mestra 5
• Tropical Leafwing 2
• Tawny Emperor 5
• Monarch 2
• Queen 50
• Soldier 1
• Dorantes Longtail 1
• Brown Longtail 6
• Sickle-winged Skipper 1
• White Checkered-Skipper 10
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 3
• Laviana White-Skipper 12
• Julia's Skipper 2
• Fawn-spotted Skipper 2
• Clouded Skipper 30
• Southern Skipperling 8
• Fiery Skipper 20
• Whirlabout 1
• Eufala Skipper 6

National Butterfly Center, 12/24/15

Over the past four warm breezy days, fifteen species of hairstreaks have been photographed at the National Butterfly Center.  One new one today was the rare Pearly-gray Hairstreak.  There was two present on Christmas of 2012.

Also new for this week was Lacey's Scrub-Hairstreak.  Several have been seen during the fall after being absent for a couple of years.

While yesterday, this cute White Scrub-Hairstreak was added to the list.

My first Guatemalan Cracker for the year was a nice one.  Mike found it yesterday.

Silver Emperor is no longer a surprise.  Lots have been seen this year.

Purple-washed Skippers have been absent for a few weeks.

And two nice spreadwing Skippers, Brown-banded and White-patched.

Aquamarine Hairstreak, Guatemalan Leafwing at NBC, 12/25/12

Aquamarine Hairstreak Oenomaus ortygnus

Pearly-gray Hairstreak Siderus tephraeus

We identified this as Clench's Greenstreak Cyanophrys miserabilis based on the brown frons and black eyes.

Oange-barred Sulphur Phoebis philea

Pavon Emperor Doxocopa pavon

Hoary Skipper at Frontera Audubon Thicket, 12/25/12

The best bug of the day was Mike Rickard's Anaea forreri. Here's a link to his photo.