Some Butterflies

It's been wet, cold and rainy the past few days so here's some butterfly pics I took at Frontera on Saturday. I've heard some birder-turned-butterflier people say that butterflying is much more difficult than birding. To this I say "bull-hooey!". Gee, you get up late after they start flying, take a few pics and if you don't recognize them in the field, look 'em up when you get home. You can even catch 'em and look at them uder the dissecting scope. You don't have to get up early. You don't have to trudge all over the place. You just stand by a patch of flowers and talk to your buddies. Also, relative to birds, it's much easier to make a significant discovery because butterflies haven't been studied as much. Never the less, some of them are still cool. I like to look at them when birding is slow. Here's my first Brazilian Skipper.



Using my above mentioned identification technique, I determined this to be a Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak.



And there were a couple of Silver-banded Hairstreals around. This little guy is only about a half inch long.



Here's a Mournful Duskywing. You can tell birding is bad when I'm photographing hairstreaks and skippers.



This tiny little guy is a Blue of some kind. I wasn't smart enough to photograph the underwings so I'm not sure of the ID. I guess a real butterflier would have known to do this.

Valley Stuff

I've been all up and down the Valley this week but haven't seen anything spectacular. While guiding some nice people from England we did manage to see the Rock Wren at Anzalduas County Park. He's been hanging out in the rocks to the south of the spillway as you enter the park.



Earlier in the week I checked out the boardwalk at the SPI convention center in hopes of finding the Nelson's (Sharp-tailed) Sparrow found last Sunday. I had no luck but found some photogenic birds, like this Roseate Spoonbill.



And this Reddish Egret.



Here's a White Ibis.



I have about maxed out my camera's photographic abilities, save using a tripod and remote release, on this Black-bellied Plover.



I think these are Long-billed Dowitchers based on the rounded back.



This guy has been hanging around for several years.