Wow! Love the photo!

Nice! I agree, looks like Gray Hairstreaks! I see them sometimes, but usually very few at a time. Maybe there's a lot of host plants nearby and many of them recently emerged from pupation.

That's an invasion most of us would certainly welcome! What beautiful little butterflies. Thanks for the photo.

linda_tx8, Thanks for your second on the "gray". Thought so, but so many slight variations on the Hairstreaks and not a great eye for the subtle differences. We do have a lot of mallow around which is one of their many host plants, so that could explain it. A few were old and ragged, though the majority did look pretty "fresh".

Close-up does appear to match the linked ID photo.

Here is a link that might be useful: Gray Hairstreak (Strymon melinus) identification keys

How neat! I didn't know Mexican Hat bloomed now.

Wow, they are lovely little butterflies aren't they? I like the Mexican Hat's too!

Thank you for posting their picture!

Mexican Hat blooms from mid-May until frost for us. These were cut to the ground while still in full bloom in July and have been back flowering for a couple weeks. We're still learning how to live with them. Didn't like how they'd start flopping from all the buds once they topped a couple feet or so. Learned by accident that they could be so aggressively trimmed and still return to bloom throughout the fall. Not many volunteers in the well mulched beds, but lots where last year's growth went through the shredder over bare earth.

Beautiful!