Tag Archives: never seen before

Sighting a Rare Clytie Ministreak Butterfly!

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Filed under Hairstreak, National Butterfly Center, Mission, TX

Clyitie ministreak butterfly (3) photographed by Jeff Zablow at the National Butterfly Center, Mission, TX

Want to see a Clytie Ministreak butterfly? If you lived where I live, Macon, Georgia, you’d have to travel those same 1,300 miles or so, to southern Texas, and then hope (pray?) that this “U-C” (Glassberg – Uncommon to Common) butterfly was about when you arrived in Mission, Texas.

I was fortunate to have travelled with Nancy and John from Atlanta’s International Airport to San Antonio, and then was driven those 4 hours to Alamo, Texas. That week, December’s Christmas week, we saw many dozens of species that I’d never seen before. Some rare species made their appearance just to please me, and for that I’m Thankful.

I’ve seen Kirk Douglas, President Eisenhower’s back of his head, Diana Ross, Mike Tyson and some more, to which List I add, Clytie Ministreak butterfly, at the National Butterfly Center’s Perennial Gardens, Mission, Texas.

Jeff

Large Orange Sulphur Butterfly in Texas

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Filed under National Butterfly Center, Mission, TX, Sulphur

Large Sulphur Butterfly photographed by Jeff Zablow at the National Butterfly Center, Mission, TX

Every day, new, new. I can’t say that I was getting used to that mini-jolt, when after decades of seeking, you come upon a butterfly you’ve never seen before.

This Large Orange Sulphur butterfly was taking a brief break from what male sulphurs do (fly continuously, until they find a female, even if that takes hours to do).

We were in the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, near the border wall and Mexico.

Did I also meet my first Orange-Barred Sulphur that Texas week? No, but I remember that day at Raccoon Creek State Park in southwestern Pennsylvania, when I have almost no doubt that I startled a vagrant Orange-Barred Sulphur on a trail I followed one morning, in, 2005 or 2006.

Jeff