Angled Leafwing at National Butterfly Center, 2-9-25

We had a very hard freeze in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas in mid January with temperatures dropping to the mid twenties and staying below freezing for ten hours.  Two weeks ago I went over to the National Butterfly Center and found most plants heavily damaged.  A couple of hours turned up only four species of butterflies.  A return yesterday after a couple of weeks of warm weather found things looking much better.  Despite the very dry conditions, plants are leafing out as they do in February down here.  White Brush and Elbo Bush were blooming and attracting butterflies.  Best of my 25 species was this fresh Angled Leafwing.  I wonder if it's an offspring from the ones we had last November.

Tropical Leafwings were also out.

I found five pecies of hairstreaks but missed the Lacey's seen the day before. Here's a Silver-banded Hairstreak.

This Clytie Ministreak was lacking the red pigments making me wonder if it was something more exotic.  Nothing from Mexico in the field guide matched it.  It's just a weird Clytie.

Here's a more normal winter form Clytie.

The Dusky-blue Goundstreaks were looking sharp.

Even the common Gray Hairstreaks were nice to see after the recent freeze.

Orange Sulphur is always one of the first spring butterflies across Texas.

So spring is on the way and things are looking up.

• Orange Sulphur 1
• Lyside Sulphur 5
• Little Yellow 5
• Silver-banded Hairstreak 1
• Gray Hairstreak 6
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 3
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 5
• Clytie Ministreak 4
• Ceraunus Blue 3
• Reakirt's Blue 6
• Fatal Metalmark 5
• American Snout 20
• Phaon Crescent 2
• Red Admiral 6
• Mexican Bluewing 2
• Tropical Leafwing 6
• Angled Leafwing 1
• Brown Longtail 1
• Funereal Duskywing 1
• White Checkered-Skipper 5
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 5
• Laviana White-Skipper 2
• Common Sootywing 1
• Southern Skipperling 1
• Fiery Skipper 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, 8/4/24

We had quite a bit of rain a couple of weeks ago so I ran over to Santa Ana NWR yesterday to check out the conditions.  In particular I wanted to check out the lakes and see if they had any water and maybe some dragonflies.  Turns out there is no surface water at all.  The thirsty ground soaked up all the rain so things actually look pretty lush despite the ponds all being dry.  Unfortuanately the refuge staff had mowed the dry Willow Lakes complex to prepare for the fall waterfowl season and in the process wiped out the balloon vines which had produce a good crop of lovely Silver-banded Hairstreaks earlier in the summer.  I couldn't find any so heres a photo from June14.

There was a nice patch of frog fruit which attracted a bunch of Phaon Cresents and this Julia's Skipper.

I've recently gotten adicted to iNaturalist and to native bees in particular.  I've yet to work out an ID on these little green sweat bees.  The blooming flower head is only about 5 mm wide.

So I wandered back over to the tour road and found the Tenaza were blooming.  For some reason they always all bloom on the same day and are only open a couple of days.  They were loaded with butterflies, mostly American Snouts, but I did mange to pick out a good one.  I am guessing this is the first Gold-spotted Aguna to be seen in the US this year.

Also nectering on the fluffy Tenaza blooms were White-striped and Brown Longtails.  They have been hard to find this year.

Also high in the Tenaza were Large Orange Sulphurs and Soldiers.

Mimosa Skippers are usually found on the ground.  They use the thorny pink mimosas that grow in area ditches as a host plant.  It's unusual to see one up in the Tenaza.

It was getting hot so I returned to the old manager's residence area and checked out the only blooming white lantana.  There were several Common Mestras.

And this metalmark looking somewhat in between a Fatal and a Rounded.  I'm guessing it's a Rounded.

Earlier I had noticed activity in the butterfly garden at the entrance to the parking lot.  So afer cooling down and having some lunch I checked it out.  A medium sized yellow with a boyant flight had me thinking of Dina Yellow but it was the more common Boisduval's Yellow which is actually pretty uncommon at Santa Ana.  I think this is the lightly makred summer form.

Well that was nice.  A few Phaon Crescents bounced around the non native flowers (I can't remember the name) by the entrance kiosk and one was a little larger.  This beat up Pale-banded Cresent is my first of the year.

So things are starting to pick up as the summer progresses.  Unfortunately we have a week of 100 degrees temperatures ahead with no rain.  Maybe that little low pressure brewing in the Caribbean can help us out.

Mexican Silverspot at Progreso Lakes, 11/27/19

Today was forecast to be warm and windy so I thought it would be a good opportunity to get some work done in our yard at Progreso Lakes.  After a couple of hours visiting butterfly watchers showed up and I used that as an excuse to stop working and have some fun.  We quickly discovered the stiff breeze was blowing in some good stuff.  First was this uncooperative Florida White.

A few minutes later a Mexican Yellow fluttered by.  We later found a second but I failed to get a great shot.

While I was trying to get them on the Florida White I caught a glimpse of a pale green sulphur with purple wing tips....Statira Sulphur!

At this point we had to get word out to other visiting lepidophiles who soon arrived only to find the Mexican Yellow but nothing else.  But they went to work and soon turned up this magnificent Mexican Silverspot, yard butterfly #115.  It's a been a few years since I have seen one.

Everyone loved the Guava Skipper as usual.

I don't get many Questionmarks.  Here's an unusual shot.

Then Linda Cooper's sharp eyes found us a Silver-banded Hairstreak.

Though I had not seen a Double-dotted Skipper in weeks, the group wanted one and so they found a couple.

I like Dorantes Longtails.  This one stayed for only a few seconds.

Not a butterfly but a cool day flying moth, this Saucy Beauty was a first for our yard.

So we found 48 species in the yard including some good quality bugs.  Meanwhile Blomfild's Beauties have been found at the National Butterfly Center and at nearby Estero Llano Grande State Park and Estero also had a Chestnut Crescent so things are looking up.

Pipevine Swallowtail 1

• Florida White 1
• Cloudless Sulphur 5
• Large Orange Sulphur 3
• Statira Sulphur 1
• Mexican Yellow 2
• Little Yellow 1
• Mimosa Yellow 2
• Dainty Sulphur 2
• Silver-banded Hairstreak 1
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 2
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 5
• Ceraunus Blue 2
• Reakirt's Blue 3
• Red-bordered Metalmark 1
• American Snout 1
• Gulf Fritillary 2
• Mexican Silverspot 1
• Texan Crescent 1
• Vesta Crescent 3
• Phaon Crescent 3
• Question Mark 1
• Painted Lady 1
• Red Admiral 1
• White Peacock 2
• Tawny Emperor 1
• Carolina Satyr 2
• Monarch 4
• Queen 10
• Soldier 2
• Guava Skipper 2
• Dorantes Longtail 1
• Brown Longtail 4
• Sickle-winged Skipper 3
• White Checkered-Skipper 4
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 2
• Laviana White-Skipper 3
• Julia's Skipper 1
• Fawn-spotted Skipper 1
• Clouded Skipper 2
• Double-dotted Skipper 2
• Southern Skipperling 3
• Fiery Skipper 8
• Whirlabout 4
• Southern Broken-Dash 3
• Sachem 2
• Eufala Skipper 2
• Ocola Skipper 2