Monday, September 10, 2007

Butterflies, Moths, and More!

Here is a photo from today of the arroyo just north of the museum, mentioned in Liss's blog here.


And one of our little museum visitors, a Desert Cottontail - about the size of a softball!
Now on to the bugs!!!!

On her blog, here, Liss showed photos of some of the butterflies we found at Dripping Springs on Friday. For anyone interested in what they were, here they are again. In addition to these, we saw a California Sister - another first for us. Liss had mentioned that there were some attracted to, well, let's call it "waste!" The first and second photos are of the butterflies on that stuff:



A Bordered Patch


Ceraunus Blue (a new one for me)


Gray Hairstreak on a Russian Thistle (Tumbleweed)


Mexican Yellow on Liatris (another new one)


Also, I have been trying to photograph the moths that show up at night on the back patio. Like most folks, I never paid them much attention until I began to take their pictures, at which point I realized that they can be quite colorful in their own right. Here are a few, but I have no names.






Back to the desert, I went on my lunchtime walk today behind the White Sands Missile Range Golf Course; I guess it was Skipper Day today because they seemed to be out in force. Below is the view to the mountains (west) from the puddling location I wrote about here:

I had been a little concerned about whether I would even be able to go out, as the mountains looked like this earlier in the day:


It rained all night and seemed like it was going to start again, but the clouds became patchy by lunchtime. The streambed was damp but there were no butterflies puddling. I should have known, after all, the whole desert was damp! I did see one Painted Lady there, though, as well as a few Queens. I made my way back to my truck along the diversion dam behind the golf course and began to run into a lot of butterflies. They were all between the dam and the desert scrub, in this area:


In addition to Common/White Checkered Skippers, Fiery Skippers, and Common Sootywings, there were these guys:

Golden-Headed Sootywings (dozens of them!)

Acacia Skipper

Dotted Roadside Skipper


Also putting in appearances today were Variegated Fritillary, Red Admiral, Bordered Patch, Checkered White, Northern Cloudywing, Sleepy Orange, and Dainty Orange.


All in all, a good day!

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