I saw one, during those days in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, in Texas near the border wall. Here it is. I look at it, and Hmmm, those wings tips, the head, couldn’t I have done better?

Then, I flip open my A Swift Guide to Butterflies of North America (Glassberg, 2017) and a wry smile grows at the corners of my mouth. Why?

This White-Patched Skipper, a spreadwing skipper butterfly, is “U” for uncommon – “R” for rare! So there it is. I was fortunate to finally visit the National Butterfly Center during the last week of December 2017, and for a brief moment, I found this uncommon-rare skipper butterfly, ’til he sped away, into the surrounding botany. He look just fine, and I was more than thrilled to have seen this very hard to find butterfly, a duskywing relation.

Thank Y-u.

Jeff