Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: A productive day butterflying :o), 1 by TexasPuddyPrint

TexasPuddyPrint wrote:
Yes, the NABA Park and Bentsen State Park are about a mile apart and those two areas get the majority of the rarities. We get lots of scientistics/butterfly book authors throughout the year too...Jeff Glassberg of course...along with Jim Brock, David Wagner, John & Gloria Tveten, Phil Schappert, Paul Opler, Mike Overton, Mike Quinn, Ro Wauer, Kim Garwood, David Lehman, Bob Behrstock and many others which I am sorry to have forgotten to mention but have led tours, taught seminars and provided guidance with their expertise.

They are all a great bunch of leps and some of them have fantastic personalities!!! Brock has a great sense of humor and Wagner will have you rolling on the ground with laughter!!!

There are numerous butterfly/birding centers in the larger cities that border the Rio Grande. Off hand, I think about eight fairly popular ones within an hour's drive that starts in the city of Mission and goes through the cities of Pharr, Weslaco, Harlingen and Brownsville.

I still whine a bit because the NABA Park is 22 miles from where I live. When it's peak butterfly season I usually take advantage of going there before or after my shift because it's only 10 miles from where I work. Just depends on what hours I'm working and what the weather is like.

There is also a wildlife refuge/butterfly park 4 miles from where I work...but it's always infested with chiggers!

...and I live only 5 miles from another butterfly/birding center that gets mass quantities of butterflies but nothing rare because it is a bit too far north from the Rio Grande River and there is no fresh water running through it. It has a lake built around it and some smaller ponds throughout it but no 'gate way' from Mexico. They have lots of nectaring plants but very few larval hosts. It is also more of a birding center that caters to water fowl...and well, birds eat butterflies :o(

Here's a male Black Witch moth that was on back porch ceiling a couple of nights ago. It always freaks me out when he camera flash makes their eyes show up red!!!