Butterflies (and bugs and birds) of Texas

[Steve Mirick]

Jane and I got away for 8 days in the last couple of weeks and headed south to Corpus Christi and the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas.  The Lower Rio Grande is a part of the United States that is unique in the number and diversity of southern vagrant bird and butterflies that barely make it into the United States.  Although the Valley is heavily developed (and has a long obnoxious looking wall), there are several nice refuges and parks that have been protected and where birders and butterfly watchers are welcome.  Just scan through some of the pages of your Swift Guide or Kauffman Guide and you'll see some of the exotic species that show up!

We didn't pick an optimum date as generally late fall and early winter are best and this is when the Annual Butterfly Festival occurs.  And the weather down there has been TERRIBLE.  Drought conditions and record high temperatures.  It was over 100F a couple of days before we arrived and generally topped out at 90F every day we were there (10F over average).  It was very crispy, dry, with not a lot of flowers.  But there were some and the dates worked for us!  And we got many more Butterflies than I would have expected given the conditions and dates.

We ended up with roughly 180 species of birds, 57 species of butterflies, and 20 species of odonates.  Sadly very few other insects.....ONE species of syrphid and 2 sightings of one species of asilid.  :-(

Butterflies, however, were great.  We visited the world famous National Butterfly Center, Santa Margarita Ranch, Santa Ana NWR, Edinburg Municipal Park, Estero Llano Grande State Park, and random coastal areas south of Corpus Christi.  The Butterfly Center had an incredible late fall with several new United States records following warm southern breezes last year.

https://www.nationalbutterflycenter.org/

We managed to get 57 +/- species of butterflies for the trip depending on how accurate ID's are.  About 46 of them were lifers for me!!!  A list followed by iNaturalist submissions as follows:

White-striped Longtail

Brown Longtail

Huron Skipper

Whirlabout

Fiery Skipper

Southern Broken-Dash

Common Mellana

Clouded Skipper

Ocherous Skipper

Eufala Skipper

Southern Skipperling

Mournful Duskywing

White Checkered-Skipper

Tropical Checkered-Skipper

Common Streaky-Skipper

Turk's-cap White-Skipper

Laviana White-Skipper

Texas Powdered Skipper

Cassius Blue

Reakirt's Blue

Ceraunus Blue

Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak

Gray Hairstreak

Empress Leilia

Silver Emperor

Pavon Emperor

Mexican Bluewing

Tropical Leafwing

Queen

Gulf Fritillary

American Snout

Band-celled Sister

Common Buckeye

Texan Crescent

Pale-banded Crescent

Bordered Patch

Vesta Crescent

Phaon Crescent

American Red Admiral

White Peacock

South Texas Satyr

Western Giant Swallowtail

Pipevine Swallowtail

Large Orange Sulphur

Marcellina Sulphur

Orange Sulphur

Southern Dogface

Little Yellow

Sleepy Orange

Mimosa Yellow

Lyside Sulphur

Great Southern White

Fatal Metalmark

Also Twintip/Mangrove Buckeye and MUTED / RUDDY HAIRSTREAK!

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?d1=2026-02-26&d2=2026-03-06&place_id=1&taxon_id=47224&user_id=stevemirick&verifiable=any

And 180 species of birds with 8 to 10 new United States lifers for me:

https://ebird.org/tripreport/480040

And 20 species of Odonates:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?d1=2026-02-26&d2=2026-03-06&place_id=1&taxon_id=47792&user_id=stevemirick&verifiable=any

Steve & Jane Mirick
Bradford, MA