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Saturday, September 4, 2010

Visit of the Swallowtails

I'm revisitng the post I did yesterday for Macro Flower Saturday, hosted by maiaT at Macro Flower Pictures because I had another visit from a swallowtail today and wanted to show the photos to you.
The original photo that I posted can be seen below. 
It's hard to believe I had never seen any swallowtail butterflies in real life until last year when I saw some Pipevine Swallowtails and Giant Swallowtails at Mercer Arboretum.

Earlier this week as I was sitting at the breakfast table, movement over by the Vitex caught my eye.  It was a huge Swallowtail which at the time I mistakenly took for a Giant Swallowtail.  Unfortunately, when I ran outside, although the butterfly stayed around, the camera lens was fogging up.

I did manage to capture this shot though...


It was only when posting the photo in here, along with the photos I took today of another butterfly that I realized I had mis-identified this one.  Can anyone tell me what this one is? Is it a Black Swallowtail?



Today when I stepped out the front door there was a butterfly floating around the four foot tall Tropical Milkweed. I'm pretty sure this one is a Giant Swallowtail.

I managed to capture several shots of him and noticed in the process that there are NO APHIDS on the Milkweed now! Yay!












It's been such a lovely day today.  The temperature is cooler, the humidity is down.  Fall is definitely on the way. My favorite time of year!

I hope you all had a great day too!


Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

9 comments:

Flower Town said...

I love your first photo though all are great. I am not just good at butterflies. I seldom do well with them. And that is a beautiful garden.

Jayne said...

Thanks - I think I was lucky with that first photo :-)

Maia T said...

More butterflies, you are so lucky to have them in your garden.
These new series of photos are gorgeous too, all of them.

Judy said...

I have no idea about names, but I love the colours of the first, unidentified, butterfly!

Jayne said...

Thanks maiaT -- as I mention in the post, I honestly had never seen a real swallowtail until last year. Not sure why - I was only living a couple of miles away for the past 6 years and I had a garden there. But no swallowtails -- not many butterflies at all, come to think of it...

Corner Gardener Sue said...

I enjoyed your butterfly photos. That first one is a beauty! I couldn't find it in my book. It almost looked like the Palamedes one in my book, but the yellow markings weren't quite the same.

Your other one does look like the Giant Swallowtails in my book.

Kimberly said...

Jayne, such pretty photos of these lovely butterflies! I'm not very good at capturing these graceful flutterers...I have to enjoy your pics!

Kathleen Scott said...

Yup, the second one is a Giant Swallowtail. I don't know what the first one is but it's not a black swallowtail... Do you have Kenn Kaufman's butterfly book? It's the best--maps, characteristics and host plants, photos and sometimes caterpillar photos too.

Jayne said...

The first one looks, in everything BUT color, to be a Spicebush Swallowtail. However, my books show those to have blue markings where the one I photographed was definitely yellow. I took photos in the bright sunlight, and also a softer overcast sort of lighting and it wasn't blue, it was yellow. So it's still a mystery.