This morning we drove over to McAllen to the Breadsmith Bakery for crusty bread and a couple of cookies to get us through a day of heavy butterflying at NBC. The butterfly preserve is great because they are "raising" butterflies, not in cages but by planting butterfly friendly plantings creating habitat and letting the butterflies find it and reproduce.
It was a great day. There were butterflies everywhere in numbers. This is just a typical sampling of the large number of species we saw. Okay, not a typical group. I had never seen a Pavon Emperor or a Mercurial Skipper in my life and I threw in a couple more that are particularly beautiful. I am sorry I could not get an opened wing shot of the Emperor, and did not get a better focused photo of the Mercurial, or a Black Swallowtail that wasn't so weathered. I think Lorna's may be better.
I have never seen that many Grass Skippers. I was going to post fourteen Fiery Skipper photos, but with much discipline I was able to contain myself.
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| Bordered Patch |
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| White-striped Longtail |
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| Giant Swallowtail |
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| Black Swallowtail |
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| Mercurial Skipper |
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| Mercurial Skipper |
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| Crimson Patch |
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| Brown Longtail |
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| Pavon Emperor |
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| Longbilled Thrasher |
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| Eastern Bluebird (female) |
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| Audubon's Oriole |
Habitat attracts birds. We weren't primarily bird chasing, but when they presented themselves we took photos of them. Some are common here in far south Texas, some aren't. The Audubon Oriole is uncommon and declining, probably due to Cowbirds.
- Gunnar
1 comment:
That does sound like a fabulous day. Great photos of the Audubon's Oriole.
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