More Clench's Greenstreaks at NBC, 5/5/26

Happy Cinco de Mayo!  It was a warm, windy humid morning so I ran over to the National Butterfly Center to look for spring strays from the south.  It didn't take long before I found another Clench's Greenstreak.  This time it was on Low Croton in the front garden.  I figured it was Woody's from two days ago but examination of wear marks prove it to be a second.

The recent hot dry weather has really knocked down the blooms.  I found only one Clytie Ministreak.

Lots of Large Orange Sulphurs around with a bewildering array of females.  No two are alike,

Copulating Reakirt's Blues.

In the south gardn I was happy to find a couple of Pale-banded Crescents.  I thought they were done for the season.

Only one Mexican Crescent today.

I thought I would check out the balloon vine trellis for Silver-banded Hairstreaks.  The vine was blooming nicely but the only hairstreak was this surprise Red-lined Scrub-Hairstreak.  Actually it's not a surprise because they also use balloon vine as a host plant.

I wandered aroud the south garden some more after lunch.  I checked the Mexican Orchid and nothing but Large Orange Sulphurs.  Then a cursory check of the nearby Fiddlewoods.  And another Clench's Greenstreak!  Three in three days.

Huron Sachem and Marine Blue pushed the Big Board up to 53 species for still early May.  Pretty good.

By 2 PM it was getting too hot for humans.

National Butterfly Center, 4/27/26

While I was on my west Texas trip, the Valley got some rain and things have really greened out.  But the spring bird migration has been really good so butterflies have taken a back seat.  Which is fine because I didn't feel like battling the mosquitos.  So Monday I finally got over to the National Butterfly Center and it was alive with flowers and butterflies.  Granted most of them were Lyside Sulphurs and Reakirt's Blues.

On the big board in the visitors center, I saw Ornythion Swallowtail had been reported among the healthy for April 63 species.  So that was my target as I headed for the Mexican Orchid bush in the south garden.  It didn't take long.  But getting a photo of this amorous male was close too impossible as he chased the female Western Giant Swallowtails.  This was the best I could do.

Western Giant Swallowtail.

Nearby I saw a Gray Hairstreak on a blooming fiddlewood.  But the color and luster seemed off so I fired at a shot at what I expected would be a Marius Hairstreak.  Wrong again!  It was a sharp really fresh Red-lined Scrub Hairstreak.  I've never seen one in spring.

Lots of Clytie Ministreaks out.

Good to see a couple of Curve-winged Metalmarks out.

All of the big whites were Great Southern White.

Marine Blue is uncommon in the RGV.

And then there were these.  We've gotten Mexican Crescent happy in the last year.  Are these Mexican Crescents?  Or are they female Vesta?  That spot in the middle of the pale jagged median band has me concerned.  But I just went on Butterflies of American and solved my problem.  These are both males.  Male Vesta is distinctly two toned black and orange.  These are two male Mexican Crescents.  I feel better now.  I think.

Distracting me from the butterflies were the bees.  Lots of species out today.  I saw a dozen or more species.  These two little cuckoo bees will give me something to study.  Triepeolus?  Epeolus?  I've never seen one with a red scutellum.  For reference the flower head of the Bidens is about 5-6mm wide.  (PS:  The first one is Epeolus interruptus.  Oddly there are scattered records across the country but the only three from Texas are in the Valley with none in Mexico.  This was the first for Hidalgo County.  I'm still working on the second.)

And a few Nomada cuckoo bees.  Cuckoo bees are kleptoparasites meaning they lay their eggs in the nest of another species know as the host species.  The larvae consume the host larvae.

I should be out playing today but I wanted to get caught up on some of this stuff.  Also going to be hot with bad air quality today.  Up river Laredo had hazardous air quality yesterday thanks to a thermal inversion.

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.

Hairstreak Extravaganza at NBC, 12/31/25

I thought I was done with the blog for the year, but 2025 held on one more day with an explosion of hairstreaks.  After a couple of days in the 50s and then warming up to 70 today lots of butterflies were enjoying the sun and looking for something to eat.  Jim Snyder from College Station found the bug of the day with our second Black Hairstreak for the December.

Second best were two Telea Haistreaks on the same frostweed.  These were both better than the scruffy one I found a couple of days ago.

Several Silver-banded Haistreaks were out.

Rare Red-lined Scrub-Hairstreaks continue.

Marius Hairstreaks seem to be increasing in numbers.

I saw only one Clytie Ministreak.

Gray Haistreaks have recovered after being rare for most of the fall.

Here is the common lowly Mallow-scrub Hairstreak.

And the even more lowly Lantana Scrub-Haistreak.  It doesn't even get to have a tail.

Finally the tenth haistreak species for the day was Dusky-blue Groundstreak.  My all time high is eleven in one day.  I missed White Scrub-hairstreak and Clench's Greenstreak that were both seen today.

The National Butterfly Center recorded 138 species in December after a record November total of 141.  Hot sunny weather ahead so we should get 2026 off to a good start.