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When I visited Northeast Metro Park in Pflugerville on July 28th I stopped to photograph some flowers of what I believe is gulf vervain, Verbena xutha, a species making its debut here. Before long I noticed that a skipper had landed on some of the flowers and I turned my attention to it. Based on my research I can say it appears to be in the genus Nastra, but I’m having trouble distinguishing between N. neamathla, the neamathla skipper, and N. lherminier, the swarthy skipper. Whichever it is, in this portrait I focused on the skipper’s head, legs, and proboscis rather than its wings, and by doing so I also managed to keep the flowers at the right mostly in focus as well.

It may be my strange imagination, but the butterfly’s eye looks to me like it could be one of