Lower Rio Grande Valley

Pictures from a Butterfly trip to South Texas - October 28 - November 8, 2015

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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All but Birds


Water Lily

Ants

Bees

Wasps

Walking Stick

Bug

Bug

Spider

Spider

Spider

Spider

Dragonfly

Dragonfly

Dragonfly

Dragonfly

Dragonfly

Queen
(Danaus gilippus)

Caterpillar
 

Caterpillar
 

Southern Flannel Moth
(Megalopyge opercularis)

Crab

Lizard

Lizard

Indigo Snake

Tortoise

Cotton Rat

Birds

Black-bellied Whistling Duck

Common Gallinule

Long-billed Curlew

Northern Jacana

Northern Jacana

Black Vulture

Harris's Hawk

Chachalaca

Eastern Screech-Owl

Common Paraque

Ladder-backed Woodpecker

Great Kiskadee

Eastern Phoebe

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

Green Jay

Green Jay

Northern Mockingbird

Curve-billed Thrasher

Long-billed Thrasher

Long-billed Thrasher

Eastern Meadowlark

Great-tailed Grackle
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