Blomfild's Beauty at NBC, 7/12/26

I ran over to the National Butterfly Center this morning and took a look at the Big Board in the visitor's center.  They were up to a very respecable 78 species of butterflies for July.  Not bad.  I noticed Desert Checkered Skipper was missing for the month so I thought I would make a try for it.  I can usually find one up front if I dig through enough checkered-skippers.  It didn't take long before I found one.  I called Woody over and he was happy to see it.

Well, what to look for next?  Woody took care of that.  "Blomfild's Beauty" was the cry from the woods.  I ran in the direction of Woody's voice and found him by a bait log holding a big stonking perfect Blomfild's Beauty.  What a knockout!.  Picasso would have been proud of that wild abstract underwing.

That will be hard to beat.  I think it's the first of 2026.  I returned to the front garden and found a nice Brown-banded Skipper.  A pretty good butterfly but it pales in comparison to Woody's find.

Several fresh Theona Checkerspots were about.

Then I saw a big sulphur and the color was wrong for Cloudless or Large Orange.  I was right.  It was a female Statira Sulphur.  I got our first of the year a few days ago.

And a little later I got a male.

Woody had reported a Gray Cracker on the lower Hackberry Trail so I drove to the south garden and it didn't take long to find it.  In fact I foud three Gray Crackers.

Lots of Mexican Bluewings.

It got hot fast and I called it quits.  Woody found a White Scrub-Hairstreak and a Turk's-Cap White-Skipper to push the Big Board to 82.  Hoping for rain.

Giant Swallowtail 10

• Checkered White 3
• Great Southern White 25
• Cloudless Sulphur 3
• Large Orange Sulphur 30
• Statira Sulphur 2
• Lyside Sulphur 20
• Little Yellow 8
• Dainty Sulphur 10
• Gray Hairstreak 1
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 1
• Clytie Ministreak 1
• Cassius Blue 6
• Ceraunus Blue 3
• Curve-winged Metalmark 1
• American Snout 25
• Gulf Fritillary 2
• Julia Heliconian 1
• Mexican Fritillary 2
• Theona Checkerspot 3
• Bordered Patch 12
• Elada Checkerspot 1
• Texan Crescent 3
• Pale-banded Crescent 2
• Phaon Crescent 20
• White Peacock 15
• Mexican Bluewing 12
• Gray Cracker 3
• Blomfild's Beauty 1
• Tropical Leafwing 10
• Empress Leilia 2
• Tawny Emperor 20
• Queen 6
• Soldier 3
• Brown Longtail 6
• Brown-banded Skipper 1
• White Checkered-Skipper 5
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 6
• Desert Checkered-Skipper 1
• Clouded Skipper 12
• Southern Skipperling 6
• Fiery Skipper 1
• Whirlabout 3
• Southern Broken-Dash 3
• Eufala Skipper 1
• Mexican Crescent 3

Gold-spotted Aguna at La Puerta, 6/24/25

This morning I ran back out to the La Puerta tract of the Lower Rio Grande Valley NWR to see if I could get better photos of the Exomalopsis birkmanni.  The poor ones I had gotten a few days ago were a first for iNaturalist for this tiny long-horned bee.  But the patch of white brush where I found them was about bloomed out and there wasn't much going one.  On the other hand, the Texas Lantana and Cenizo were blooming like crazy so there had to something out there.  Well I didn't see much but quality is better than quantity.  My first Gold-spotted Aguna for the year was a real surprise.  Glassberg has then catagorized as rare but I see one most years.

The same patch of lantana held a Coyote Cloudywing.  Nick Grishin's crew has moved the taxon into the genus Cecropterus and now considers the taxon as a subspecies of Skinner's Cloudywing, Cecropterus albociliatus  Ugh.  Not a popular decision for many of the old timers but it probably makes sense.

Cenizo, romantically refered to as Purple Sage, is the host plant for Theona Checkerspot.  I bet we have a lot of them in a few weeks.

These copulating Bombus bee flies were interesting.

Several Heartleaf  Hibiscus were blooming but I rarely see pollinators on them.

Here's the tiny Exomalopsis birkmanni as identified by Paula Cole, author of  Wild Bees of the National Butterfly Center.  I don't think they are very rare.

Vicroy's Ministreak at La Puerta Tract, 5/7/25

Monday I was driving out to Salineno and Falcon to look for birds but I got a late start so as I approached Rio Grande City I thought why not check out the La Puerta Tract of the Lower Rio Grande NWR.  Turns out it was lush and birdy.  So yesterday I ran there again but it was less birdy and the sun was out and stuff was flying.  So I switched over to butterflies and bees and had a good morning.  Butterfly of the day was this pebbly little Vicroy's Ministreak, only my third and first self found.

Otherwise butterflies were numerous but with low diversity as has been the case since the freeze and flood.  There was lots of cenizo out there so a Theona Checkerspot was expected.

Best I can tell this is a Theona Checkerspot catepillar.

Lots of Western Giant Swallowtails.

And lots of sulphurs like this Southern Dogface.

This fresh Funereal Duskywing almost looks like a Mournful but not mottled enough on the interior forewing.

Otherwise it was an amazing display of native bees like giant Glorious Protoxea.

And tiny Vireck's Nomad Cuckoo Bee.

Here are both of these rare bees together for a size comparison.

Hoping we can get some more rain to keep this stuff going or they're going to fry in the summer heat.

Four-spotted Sailor at National Butterfly Center, 11/18/18

I was going to spend my morning in the yard today, but word came out of a Smudged Hairstreak at the National Butterfly Center.  So I raced over only to find the butterfly was gone.  And there was discussion it may have been a Marius Hairstreak anyway.  But then the Four-spotted Sailor found several days ago was refound.  And it was a male which I had never seen before so my trip was worthwhile.  Love that metallic teal!

Didn't see anything else noteworthy.  Here's a sharp Mexican Fritillary and a Mex Frit chrysalis.

And the hard-not-to-photograph Gulf Fritillary.

Don't know why but there were lots of White Checkered-Skippers around.

It's been a good fall for Theona Checkerspots.

I liked these Whirlabout photos.

So it was nice afternoon and I got so see all my butterfly friends who visit this time of year.

Dark Kite-Swallowtail at Old Hidalgo Pumphouse, 6/5/16

It was another trip to Santa Ana NWR this morning to look for the Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher.  I gave up after four hours and went home for lunch.  After eating I was thinking about a nap when I got the call from Bill Supulski that Tripp Davenport had just found a Dark Kite-Swallowtail at the Old Hidalgo Pumphouse. Someone sees one of these every few years down here but they only hang round a couple of minutes and then they're gone.   From our house it's 22 miles to the Pumphouse so I thought it was worth a shot.  I raced over and Tripp, Bill, Dot, Robin and Troy were still there and so was the swallowtail.  It only hung around a few minutes more but I was happy to get some shots as it nectared in a blooming fiddlewood.  I was excited and forgot to move my lense down to 300 mm from 400 so these photos are not the best.

Earlier in the morning after a couple of hours at the Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher vigil my birding discipline weakened and I wandered over to the butterfly garden on the other side of the visitors center.  One of the first butterflies I saw was a Hoary Skipper ovipositing on turk's-cap.  Joined by some of the other birders we soon found a couple more of them.

A blooming fiddlewood was really attracting the butterflies.  Over the next two hours I saw 35 species make a nectar stop.  Most made only a brief appearance this Ornythion Swallowtail

and two Giant Whites

and a Theona Checkerspot

and this Two-barred Flasher.

Mexican Bluewings don't show much interest in flower nectar.  They seem to prefer sap and ground salts.

A Guava Skipper checked out the blooming plumbago.

A couple of battling Great Southern Whites flew up over the roof of the visitors center.

Back at the fiddlewood were a couple more Hoary Skippers.

and my first Ocola Skipper for the year.

Here's my list from the butterfly gardens at Santa Ana NWR.

• Giant Swallowtail 1
• Ornythion Swallowtail 1
• Great Southern White 3
• Giant White 2
• Large Orange Sulphur 2
• Lyside Sulphur 2
• Mimosa Yellow 1
• Dainty Sulphur 1
• Gray Hairstreak 1
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 5
• Clytie Ministreak 1
• Reakirt's Blue 1
• Red-bordered Metalmark 3
• American Snout 50
• Gulf Fritillary 1
• Zebra Heliconian 2
• Theona Checkerspot 1
• Bordered Patch 2
• Crimson Patch 1
• Texan Crescent 4
• Pale-banded Crescent 4
• Vesta Crescent 1
• White Peacock 1
• Mexican Bluewing 3
• Tawny Emperor 2
• Carolina Satyr `
• Guava Skipper 1
• Zilpa Longtail 1
• Brown Longtail 4
• Two-barred Flasher 1
• Coyote Cloudywing 1
• Hoary Skipper 3
• White-patched Skipper 1
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 4
• Laviana White-Skipper 2
• Turk's-cap White-Skipper 2
• Fawn-spotted Skipper 4
• Clouded Skipper 2
• Fiery Skipper 1
• Whirlabout 1
• Southern Broken-Dash 8
• Nysa Roadside-Skipper 1
• Celia's Roadside-Skipper 5
• Ocola Skipper 1