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

National Butterfly Center, 7/13/25

Meanwhile......  With the summer rain, Stephanie and the crew at the National Butterfly Center have the place looking great.  Plants are lush and blooming and screaming for butterflies.  The warm, humid wind has been blowing pretty hard from the southeast the past few days, feeding the Hill Country flooding, and I was hoping it might bring up some of our rare summertime swallowtails.  Not super rare but this beat up Ornythion Swallowtail was appreciated.  It's had a tough trip from Mexico!

Our usual Western Giant Swallowtails are supeficially similar but obviously a much brighter yellow.  The marginal spots on the hind wing are also shaped differently.

My first butterfly of the day was this tasty Red-bordered Pixie.  I saw two today and a couple more were reported last week.  So they are back baby!

My other metalmark species for the day was a pair of Red-bordered Metalmarks.

Fiddlewoods were blooming nicely and attracting hairstreaks.  Here are the common Gray Hairstreak, Dusky-blue Groundstreak and Clytie Ministreak.

Beewise I got a lifer today.  This is the tiny Cobalt Small Carpenter Bee.  I have probbly seen them in the past and passed them of as a metallic sweat bee.  But thas bulbous abdomen is pretty distinct.  I wish I had gotten better photos.

I think this guy is a bee also but I have some research to do.  It looks familiar.

Thy've had a lot of rain in Mexico so it should be about time for the butterfly factories to send some beauties out way.  I need to start a weekly survey of the park.

Butterfly #150 at Progreso Lakes, 12/8/23

Well, I see that I haven't posted anything since June.  Well maybe that's because we had 90 days of at least 100F and no rain over the ensuing four months.  The harsh summer and fall decimated butterfly populations here in the Rio Grande Valley.  But in last couple of monts we've had a few showers and things are looking better.  The Texas Butterfly Festival had OK numbers of butterflies but really low diversity.  Crucita was late blooming but showers and cooler weather have kept blooms on much later than usual.  Our garden at Progreso Lakes looks pretty good now.

So yesterday I was making the rounds, hoping for some thing different, when I spied this striped long-tailed masterpiece.  Finally our first Many-banded Daggerwing and butterfly species #150 for our yard!  It was the species I thought was most overdue for our yard considering we've already had several Ruddy Daggerwings.

Red-bordered Pixies have made a strong someback.  They are a favorite in our yard for visiting butterfly watchers.

I put our word about the Many-banded Daggerwing and visiting butterfly watchers rushed over but it was present for only a minute and never refound.  But in turn they manged to turn up other good stuff like this Boisduval's Yellow.  I haven'st seen one in our yard since spring.

They also found this Purple-washed Skipper which is maybe the first I've seen this year.

Our bair station has had Red Admirals, Tawny Emperors and finally an Empress Leilia.

There is no shortage of Queens.

Here's a list of 47 species of butterflies seen in our yard over the past two days .

• Giant White 1
• Southern Dogface 1
• Cloudless Sulphur 8
• Large Orange Sulphur 4
• Lyside Sulphur 4
• Boisduval's Yellow 1
• Little Yellow 5
• Mimosa Yellow 1
• Sleepy Orange 2
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 1
• Clytie Ministreak 1
• Fatal Metalmark 1
• Rounded Metalmark 1
• Red-bordered Metalmark 1
• Red-bordered Pixie 4
• American Snout 50
• Gulf Fritillary 2
• Bordered Patch 2
• Vesta Crescent 1
• Phaon Crescent 2
• Pearl Crescent 2
• Painted Lady 1
• Red Admiral 5
• Common Mestra 1
• Many-banded Daggerwing 1
• Empress Leilia 1
• Tawny Emperor 3
• Monarch 1
• Queen 25
• Soldier 6
• Guava Skipper 1
• Brown Longtail 5
• Mournful Duskywing 1
• White Checkered-Skipper 6
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 3
• Laviana White-Skipper 3
• Common Sootywing 1
• Fawn-spotted Skipper 1
• Clouded Skipper 6
• Southern Skipperling 1
• Fiery Skipper 5
• Whirlabout 4
• Sachem 2
• Common Mellana 3
• Celia's Roadside-Skipper 1
• Eufala Skipper 8
• Purple-washed Skipper 1

Potrillo Skipper at Progreso Lakes, 11/19/20

Lately they've had some really good butterflies at the National Butterfly Center near Mission and I was very temped to go over there today.  But if they can get good butterflies over there, shouldn't I be able to find some here?  We also have a Selasphorus Hummingbird I wanted to photograph so staying here seemed to be a good choice.  Well the hummer didn't cooperate and there wasn't much butterfly wise till I found this skipper.  My first impression was it was a well marked Brown Longtail lacking its tails.  But I was going to shoot it anyway and what a surprise when through the camera I discovered it was a Potrillo Skipper.  I saw her several more times during the day and she seemed to be trying to oviposit on Ruellia.  These have been hard to find in recent years.  This Potrillo Skipper was Progreso Lakes yard butterfly #127.

Red-crescent Scrub-Hairstreak continues to not be a surprise this year.

We don't get many Zebra Heliconians and this one ovipositing on on the Corky-stemmed Passionvine was especially welcome.

It was one year ago when visiting butterfly watchers found our first Boisduval's Yellows.  Now they are a regular resident in our yard.

I put out some butterfly bait and attracted Tawny Emperors and this Tropical Leafwing.

Red-bordered Pixies are back.

A few days ago the Malachite returned and I was able to get much better photos.

Warm dry weather is forcast for the foreseeable future so the good butterflies should just keep coming.

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