Two years and two weeks after our
last visit to the area, my friend Rebecca and I
took another fabulous trip to the Lower Rio Grande Valley in south Texas in
search of some good butterflies.
From our base at the Alamo Inn B&B,
we took day trips to a number of good sites, including Loma Alta Lake, Bentsen-Rio Grande
Valley State Park, Edinburg Scenic Wetlands, Frontera Audubon Center, Estero Llano
Grande State Park, Resaca de la Palma State Park, Boca Chica, the Hidalgo Pump House, with
multiple visits to the National
Butterfly Center of the North American Butterfly Association (NABA).
Although the trip started on a cold and blustery day, the weather overall was
pretty good for the rest of the trip and we ended up with more than 90 butterfly
species, about a third of which were new for me.
The following pages show some of the pictures from the trip. This first page has
pictures of some of the other interesting creatures we saw on the trip, including
some of the local bird specialties, one of which was the Amazon Kingfisher on only
its second US visit that we got to see almost immediately at the site.
Butterfly pictures are on the next 3 pages.
Page 2 has the Swallowtails (Papilionidae), Whites and Sulphurs (Pieridae),
Hairstreaks and Blues (Lycaenidae), and Metalmarks (Riodinidae);
Page 3 the Brushfoots (Nymphalidae); and Page 4 the Skippers (Hesperiidae).
Click on any of the thumbnails to view a larger version
in a separate window.
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