Northern Faceted Skipper at NBC, 1/4/25

I took the morning to do some photo editing and managed to finally clean my SD card.  But a weak front went through yesterday and sometimes those will shuffle the butterflies around and new stuff can pop up.  And Mark and Joanie Hubinger found an ultra rare One-spotted Prepona at Santa Ana NWR yesterday which was not refound.  But if one shows up so can another.  So I eventually wound up at the National Butterfly Center again for a fifth day in a row.  Got my first Great Purple Hairstreak for the year.

Still a few straggler Red-lined Scrub-Hairstreaks around.  I guess that's what this is.

Peggy found my first Caballo (Potrillo) Skipper for the year.

A couple of days ago Peggy found a rare Variegated Skipper in the azureum at the south cross over.  I was looking for it when I found this Skinner's (Coyote) Cloudywing.

And then I looked down and there was another Northern Faceted-Skipper (Malicious Skipper) right next to me.  Apparently it had been found earlier by Dennis Vollmar but I had not been watching the alerts.  With the recent Nick Grishin et al splits, everything seems to have two names these days.

More warm weather ahead for the next few days.

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

Quinta Mazatlan, 10/29/24

An impromtu run over to Quinta Mazatlan turned into a pretty darn good butterfly day.  The private garden just outside the entrance gave up its usual Mexican Fritillary.

The crucita by the entrace to the beautiful old visitor's center hosted a worn Julia.  It is often called the Julia Heliconian but it is not a Heliconius.

After checking in I hit the little garden just outside and things started getting good.  I have never seen so many Pale-banded Crescents.  They have been hard to find this year.

A male Red-borded Metalmark showed off his scarlet underwings.

Then I found a good one.  This is the first Potrillo Skipper I have seen this year.  The usual spot at the Old Cemetery at Santa Ana NWR has failed to produce any.  Nick Grishin's new name is Caballo Skipper.  Hard to keep up with all the new splits from the recent DNA work.  

And then a Giant White made a brief appearance.

I checked the plumbago patch where the Mexican Violetear hung out a few years ago and found this sharp Two-barred Flasher.  Nick Grishin has split this one off and is calling it Qian's Flasher.

Lots of Mourful Duskywings around, each one different.

A walk back to the Ebony Grove Turned up a massive patch of crucita.  McAllen had some heavy rain in August that other local spots missed.  Here I found both Long-tailed Skipper and Brown Longtail.

Good grass skipper diversity nectaring on the crucita.  Here are Ocola, Sachem and Fiery Skippers.

A return to the little garden by the visitors center gave me my best butterfly.  Curve-winged Metalmark has been nonexistent in the RGV this year.

One last loop around the park turned up a Silver-banded Hairstreaak.

Finally, after seeing a half dozen during the day, I got a decent Zebra Heliconian shot back at the private garden where I started.  This really is a Heliconius (for now) but some call it the Zebra Longwing.  In the birding world, The American Ornithological Society does a good job of keeping bird names uniform in the New World.  But lepidopterists are a petty, divided bunch with a frustrating lack of uniformity in common names and even species recognition.  Oh well.....

Here's today list of 44 species

• Pipevine Swallowtail 1
• Giant Swallowtail 6
• Giant White 1
• Southern Dogface 1
• Cloudless Sulphur 3
• Large Orange Sulphur 6
• Lyside Sulphur 1
• Little Yellow 3
• Silver-banded Hairstreak 1
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 2
• Cassius Blue 1
• Red-bordered Metalmark 2
• Red-bordered Pixie 1
• Curve-winged Metalmark 1
• American Snout 1
• Gulf Fritillary 1
• Julia Heliconian 1
• Zebra Heliconian 5
• Mexican Fritillary 1
• Bordered Patch 3
• Texan Crescent 1
• Pale-banded Crescent 25
• Vesta Crescent 1
• Pearl Crescent 1
• White Peacock 5
• Mexican Bluewing 1
• Common Mestra 4
• Tawny Emperor 2
• Queen 5
• Long-tailed Skipper 1
• Brown Longtail 2
• Two-barred Flasher 1
• Potrillo Skipper 2
• Sickle-winged Skipper 8
• Mournful Duskywing 8
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 2
• Laviana White-Skipper 4
• Clouded Skipper 3
• Fiery Skipper 15
• Whirlabout 2
• Sachem 5
• Eufala Skipper 3
• Ocola Skipper 6
• Purple-washed Skipper 1

Santa Ana NWR, 5/30/23

With all the recent rain I thought a trip to Santa Ana NWR was in order.  Trails were muddy so I walked the tour road to the cemetery.  Things are pretty lush but not a lot was blooming except at the cemetery where I found this Potrillo Skipper.  I had seen them there in the past but a check of my records found my last one was 5/31/15.  Almost the same date eight years ago.

Nearby was this Texas Powdered Skipper.  I found my lifer at Santa ana years ago.

A group of 25 Laviana White-Skippers were sucking at the moist soil.

Along with a Mimosa Yellow.

Checking the piles of animal scat can always be productive.  Here's a Sickle-winged Skipper and a Texan Crescent.

Here's today's list of 31 species.  Gotta get back over there in a couple of weeks.

• Giant Swallowtail 6
• Great Southern White 1
• Southern Dogface 1
• Large Orange Sulphur 2
• Lyside Sulphur 40
• Little Yellow 3
• Mimosa Yellow 1
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 1
• Clytie Ministreak 1
• Reakirt's Blue 2
• Red-bordered Metalmark 1
• American Snout 3
• Gulf Fritillary 2
• Variegated Fritillary 1
• Bordered Patch 2
• Texan Crescent 12
• Vesta Crescent 15
• White Peacock 3
• Common Mestra 25
• Queen 1
• White-striped Longtail 1
• Brown Longtail 2
• Potrillo Skipper 1
• Texas Powdered-Skipper 1
• Sickle-winged Skipper 6
• White Checkered-Skipper 1
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 1
• Laviana White-Skipper 30
• Clouded Skipper 2
• Whirlabout 1
• Celia's Roadside-Skipper 3