Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: DAILY BUTTERFLIES Page 30, 1 by TexasPuddyPrint

TexasPuddyPrint wrote:
Another lifer for me!!! Woohoo!!!! Went to the NABA park today and a buddy and I were getting in my car to go eat lunch. Just then a winter tourist came up to me and my partner - telling us we'd been pointed out as the butterfliers who could answer her questions. She described a butterfly that was medium sized and black with red and whitish bands to Tom and myself.

We're thinking...eh...probably a Red Admiral...so I show her a photo of it in my Kaufman Guide. She says no. Okay, Tom and I think perhaps it's a Red Rim...so I show her a photo of that. Nope, she says.

Okay...I'm flipping through the book thinking what could be black, white and red???? I see the photo of an Erato Heliconian and show her that (Tom and I are thinking, she's going to say no to that too...after all it is a very very rare butterfly for us). She says, yeah...it looked a lot like that!!!

Tom and I look at each other and think...nahhh...ain't gonna happen...but we look at each other again and both grab our camera and binocs from the car and tell each other...let's go back up to the canal area to have a look around.

Well, lo and behold! We went to the spot she said she saw it and it flitted by us within a couple of minutes! Unreal!!!! That dratted butterfly would not stop though...it just flitted along the canal from one end of the park to the other. I got on the phone and called our other butterflying friends and they all showed too. The butterfly was most cooperative as it kept reappearing for the four hours we were standing around the area...but it just would not stop. We're thinking it was a male and he was trolling the area looking for a female. He kept flitting the same path back and forth all the while we were there

Nobody was able to get a good photo of it though. We got photos of it on the wing...fly-byes as we call it. What can I say...my terrible photo was the best from the lot of us! It turned out to be a lifer for several other folks too. There was no question about the positive identification either. It is a very striking butterfly.

Finally gave up after four hours of trying to get a good photo and let my rumbling stomach take the lead. We'd not eaten breakfast and were heading to lunch when we got sidetracked by it :o)

Here's the elusive bug!

Erato Heliconian (Heliconius erato)