Alright, enough.
While looking for the Bay-breasted Warbler (Setophaga castanea) in the huge elm along the front walk at the Gage Hotel, here in Marathon. I stumbled upon a more reliable species out here in far-West Texas. Well, it doesn't fly all yr and generally the trans-Pecos region of Texas is the only portion of the Lone Star that this species' range includes.
West Coast Lady (Vanessa annabella)
Certainly a familiar species in western longitudes as the common name would emply, they utilize mallows and other lovely not-weeds-to-all-of-us (yep, just made that up) as a hostplant.
Heidi and I leave in our yard the beautiful globe-mallows family (Malvaceae), gauras family (Onagraceae), and others for this reason. For numerous reasons actually; I would have to compose a lengthy and extremely-likely incomplete species list. Also, they belong here.
This afternoon was quite windy from the south, making photograghing this insect, nectaring within this particular flower bed, difficult. This caused fewer satisfactory photos to choose from.
I arrived at this location not expecting to be photographing leps. I actually was there to quickly view, once again, this guy:
Bay-breasted Warbler, fall male, Gage Hotel, Marathon, TX
*photo of warbler courtesy of Carolyn Ohl-Johnson*
All this, and I wasn't even in the Gage Gardens across the tracks.
See you all at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival down in Harlingen, TX.
Heidi and I will be at the Gage Hotel booth proudly representing our region, county, town and my employer; seeing old friends, and making new ones.
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