Lower Pine Canyon, Big Bend NP, 4/7/15

Spent the day in Big Bend National Park walking the trail to the pour off in lower Pine Canyon.  Butterflies picked up as the day warmed and I ended up seeing some really good stuff.  Walking up the trail I passed through some bear grass and found my primary target for the day, Sandia Hairstreak.  A couple were chasing each other for several minutes till one landed on  a blade of bear grass.

A nice surprise at the end of the trail at the pour off was my first Chisos Skipperling.  It was sitting on a wet rock in the splash zone from the water pouring over the cliff from over a hundred feet above.  The slippery rocks and occasion pelting of water from above made getting a good photo of this rare butterfly difficult.  It looks like it's ovipositing on the rock.  What's up with that?

Additional butterflies in the dappled sunlight under the maples and oaks were Two-tailed Swallowtails, California Sister, Common Streaky-Skipper and Golden Banded-Skipper.

Walking back down the canyon, I saw several brown duskywings.  As I've never walked this canyon in the spring this was my first Sleepy Duskywing Erynnis brizo.

I'm not so sure about this one but with the white spots on the forewing and the two spots on the under side of the hind wing I think it's a Rocky Mountain Duskywing Erynnis telemachus.

Saw this Rawson's Metalmark as I approached my car.

As I was driving about a half mile away from the trailhead I saw this little hairstreak flying around a big yucca.  I got some photos and the best I could make of it was Red-lined Scrub-Hairstreak.  But after posting the photos on Facebook both Martin Reid and Chris Durden (who co-authored the paper describing the species) say its the Big Bend Scrub-Hairstreak Strymon solitario.  This local species uses the ground bromeliad Hectia texensis as a host plant and it was previously know as Bromiliad Scrub-Hairstreak which is a different species Strymon serapio.  I hope I have this right.

Quite a day!

• Two-tailed Swallowtail 5
• Checkered White 20
• Southern Dogface 5
• Mexican Yellow 12
• Dainty Sulphur 3
• Great Purple Hairstreak 1
• Sandia Hairstreak 2
• Gray Hairstreak 1
• Reakirt's Blue 1
• Rawson's Metalmark 1
• Variegated Fritillary 5
• Bordered Patch 3
• Texan Crescent 3
• Vesta Crescent 5
• Red Admiral 1
• California Sister 1
• Golden Banded-Skipper 6
• Sleepy Duskywing 2
• Rocky Mountain Duskywing 1
• Funereal Duskywing 1
• Desert Checkered-Skipper 10
• Common Sootywing 10
• Chisos Skipperling 1
• Orange Skipperling 15

Big Bend National Park, Pine Canyon, 10/11/14

I had not managed to get out to Big Bend National Park this year, so I took advantage of an opportunity to go this past weekend before the cold front came through.  I really wanted to go up the Emory Peak trail to look for Troy Hibbet's Chisos Giant-Skippers but decided I wasn't up to  the nine mile hike so I decided to make a run up Pine Canyon instead.  It's been a wet fall so far and the flowers were spectacular.

And though I didn't find anything unusual, there were tons of butterflies and I managed to see 32 species on the two mile hike up to the Pine Canyon Pouroff.  Best for me was my first Rawson's Metalmark.

I tried hard to turn this into the regional Chinati Checkerspot.  The under wing pattern agrees but the upper surface looks like the widespread Theona Checkerspot.

I saw more Mexican Yellow's than all my previous sightings combined.

Only one Questionmark, but it was a doozy.

I can't resist a good California Sister.

And there were plenty of Orange Skipperlings.

I searched dozens of Elada Checkerspots hoping to find a Tiny Checkerspot but I failed.

Here's my list for the day.

• Checkered White 20
• Orange Sulphur 1
• Southern Dogface 40
• Cloudless Sulphur 1
• Lyside Sulphur 1
• Mexican Yellow 25
• Sleepy Orange 30
• Dainty Sulphur 25
• Gray Hairstreak 4
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 1
• Marine Blue 2
• Reakirt's Blue 20
• Rawson's Metalmark 1
• American Snout 15
• Variegated Fritillary 30
• Theona Checkerspot 1
• Bordered Patch 10
• Elada Crescent 30
• Texan Crescent 5
• Vesta Crescent 10
• Question Mark 1
• American Lady 1
• Painted Lady 5
• Common Buckeye 2
• California Sister 8
• Common Mestra 15
• Monarch 3
• Queen 4
• Funereal Duskywing 1
• White Checkered-Skipper 1
• Desert Checkered-Skipper 20
• Orange Skipperling 20