Two years after our
last visit to the area in 2013 and four years since our first visit, my friend Rebecca and I
met our friend, Steve Abbey, on 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 Santa Ana NWR, Bentsen-Rio Grande
Valley State Park, Estero Llano Grande State Park, Resaca de la Palma State Park, Falcon State Park,Rio Rico Road, Sabal Palm Sanctuary,
Boca Chica, Palo Alto Battlefield NHP, Loma Alta Lake, Quinta Mazatlan with
multiple visits to the National
Butterfly Center of the North American Butterfly Association (NABA).
This time the trip followed on the heels of Hurricane Patricia, which had pretty much run out of steam before reaching the valley but brought
much-needed moisture to wake up the butterflies. Overall, the weather was hot and humid with a few clouds and sprinkles later in the trip.
We regularly ran into a number of other butterflying friends some of whom came for the Texas Butterfly Festival and helped us track down
99 butterfly species, of which 22 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, with
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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