Black Swallowtail Visiting Today

This beauty decided to come visit my verbena this afternoon!
yvana :)

And my butterfly bush.....He was very cooperative with the camera!

Beautiful!

Thanks, Floridian! He really brightened my day! I haven't seen as many butterflies this summer as I did last year! Have you?

That's lovely. I don't know if we get those here in NY. The weather has been so cold and wet that the butterflies have suffered. Last year we didn't see as many. My first one this year was in March and it was a Mourning Cloak and I have seen the yellow swallowtails and some small painted ladies. Have you checked out Journey North?

http://www.learner.org/jnorth/

You know yvana, now that you mention it, I don't think we do have as many butterflies this year. Last year we had tons of them. We did lose lots of foliage to freeze this past winter...I wonder if that had anything to do with it?
Neat site TrilliumGirl, I wish I'd known about it earlier this year when we were seeing firsts.

Luckily I have seen quite a few caterpillars (some Swallowtail) ..... so hopefully we can see a few new generations born this summer!
yvana ;)

That's a girl butterfly. It's the dark form female Tiger Swallowtail. Next time you see one look on the underside of the wings and you can see faint traces of the tiger stripes.

I went to Callaway gardens this Monday, it was great and I'm going to have to come back again when they open the big indoor plant exibit up again. They didn't have many butterflies outdoors either, but I think you are probably just a bit later than here. My Swallowtails started arriving just a few weeks ago. I have tons of them now.

Thanks, Paintedlady! Maybe I will see more Swallowtails soon! By the way, where is Ellabell, GA?? I see that you are Zone 8A, so you must be in Central or South GA....
yvana :)

I got the mountains mixed up, LOL. I was thinking you where from Pine Mountain, that's why I brought up Callaway gardens.

Ellabell is about 35 miles west of Savannah. I hope you will come to the fall swap so we can meet.

I got lucky with the camera today (except for the junk in the background), the two different tiger ladies posing in the same photo.
The male only comes in the yellow and black form, and he has no blue on the hind wings so that's how you can tell the difference

OHHHH! You are so smart!! So the male is tiger striped ALWAYS but without any blue. The tiger striped with blue is female, as is the black/blue female. Now how do you tell the black/blue female tiger swallowtail from the Black Swallowtail male/female?

I have been to Callaway Gardens and Pine Mountain once but we didn't see the butterflies because it was raining heavy.

I would like to attend a plant swap! I am a little leery of driving too far out....but I need to be a little adventurous every now and then!

I forgot to comment on your excellent picture, Painted Lady!! WOW! What a pair!! Nice photo!
yvana :)

I hope you can come. Violabird is already busy organizing it. It will be at High Falls, about one hour south of Atlanta on October 18. Here's the thread about it. http://davesgarden.com/t/383741/
It will be fun!

I went digging in last years photos, here's the male Tiger

The Dark female Tiger is always a lot bigger than the eastern black. The body of the black swallowtail has white spots, the tiger doesn't have them. It's hard to tell them apart at first.
Here's a female Black Swallowtail.
The spots on her wings are white.

This is a male Black Swallowtail. I raised it myself so this is the first flight and the colors haven't faded.
His spots are yellow but fade with time.

You are very talented!! I love all of your butterfly photos! How long have you been interested in butterflies? Here's another question: Which type of butterfly is this caterpillar??

That is an Eastern Black Swallowtail cat. they eat parsley, fennel, rue, carrot leaves etc. It looks just about ready to pupate too.

I have been interested in butterflies ever since I came to GA about 13 years ago and discovered how many beautiful ones we have here. When I moved to my country property 3 years ago I started to really work on a butterfly garden.
It is getting better every year as I learn more about what to grow. It's fun.

Thanks alot for the information!! You have really been doing your homework!! This is the third year I have been photographing (or trying to photograph) butterflies! They are like rainbows to me! So special and so awesome!! In addition to swallowtails, I really like Red Spotted Purples!!!

Hello Ladies! Wonderful pictures all! Wish I knew more about em, if I keep listening to you two maybe I'll get educated! Between the 'hummer wars' and butterfly dances my garden was wonderful today!

Gee, guess I heard you talkin about me Kris! Yvana, you really should meet this wonderful lady, sounds like you two have something in common here! And our 'swap' is coming up again soon! If Kris can drive from Savannah, yvana, (rhyme lol) you can drive from Stone Mtn! As I hope you can see on our thread, High Falls is really pretty and a nice place for the family too. I'm sure there's a shortcut, but seems like only an hour drive or so! Please come meet us over at the round-up forums, I know you will absolutely love our get togethers! And just think, we'll be starting a wish list for plants soon (;think butterfly plants :)

Vi

Paintedlady, while you were at Callaways did you visit the Day Butterfly Center? I was there 2 weeks ago and the place was full of butterflys.

Is that porterweed it is on?

Yvana, I really like the Red Spotted Purple too. They don't hang around flowers that much, but I had several here the other day. Never got around to getting the camera though, so I'm just going to have to look at yours. The blue color on it is so intense.

Poorgeorge, I did visit the butterfly house. It was really nice but I liked the one in Key West better because they had more big and amazing butters there. The plants in the Callaway butterfly house was better. I saw some I just have to have next year.

Weeds, that is Porterweed, I have discovered that there are several different ones. I have a pink, a red and the blue above. The butterflies and the hummers love them.