Brrrrrrrrownsville - 1/13/01

[Mark Walker]

Well, I flew out of San Diego last Friday under a torrential downpour - only
to arrive in SoTexas under more perpetual cloud cover.  Yesterday the
weather maps showed the whole state completely obscured by clouds (oooh, I
just had a Pink Floyd flashback...).  Of course, any chance for lepping is
justification enough to drive six hours.  Unfortunately, in Brownsville I
found more rain and cold weather, even though the temperature did push into
the 80's on Saturday.
 
The weather is funny in SoTexas - it can change very rapidly, and can often
be extremely local.  One must be prepared for mobility - to follow the sun,
so to speak.  As I motored about, I managed to drive out from underneath the
lowest layer of rainclouds - and then continued to drive until I started
seeing patches of sunlight breaking through the upper cloud layer.  As soon
as I had what I was looking for, I searched for the nearest available
habitat.  I was now in Mission, Texas - a fairly populated town west of
McAllen.  In this case, the best I could find was an abandoned pasture that
had been overgrown with flowering weedy plants.  Pretty sterile and
un-interesting, but an appealing source of nectar on this otherwise
miserable day for lepping.
 
The wind continued to blow, and the clouds dispersed and reappeared while I
hiked among the weeds.  Conditions: - crappy, to say the least.  Still,
there is a certain solitude that comes from the search for insects.  It
requires the full set of senses - and demands a degree of focus that
precludes any multi-tasking.  I've found that once in the field, there is
typically a 10-15 minute sensory initialization period that is required
before any serious lepping can occur.  It can even be somewhat uncomfortable
as the CNS feedback control loops begin to adjust your eyeball muscles to
optimize the sensory input.  Within this initialization period during which
the various filter control settings are still oscillating, even the
slightest buzzing or tracing can overwhelm the system - producing major
brain overload.  Talk about flashbacks.
 
So after sufficient settling down time, I began to notice some flying
beasties.  With increasing sunshine, the number increased rapidly.  A nice
fix for the ever annoying winter butterfly withdrawals.  Here's the list:
 
Pontia protodice (Checkered White)
Pieris rapae (Cabbage White)
Zerene cesonia (Southern Dogface)
Eurema lisa (Little Yellow)
Kricogonia lyside (Lyside Sulphur)
Nathalis iole (Dainty Sulphur)
 
Strymon melinus (Gray Hairstreak)
Hemiargus isola (Reakirt's Blue)
Brephidium exile (Western Pygmy Blue)
Calephelis nemesis (Fatal Metalmark)
 
Libytheana carinenta (American Snout)
Agraulis vanillae (Gulf Fritillary)
Chlosyne lacinia (Bordered Patch)
Vanessa cardui (Painted Lady)
Hermeuptychia sosybius (Carolina Satyr)
 
Danaus plexippus (Monarch)
Danaus gilippus (Queen)
 
Capaeodes minima (Southern Skipperling)
 
Mark Walker
still raining in Houston, TX
 
 
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