Wednesday Garden Pic: New Butterfly & Sweet Potato Blooms!
I had one Black Swallowtail caterpillar that I knew where it was. Last week, I posted a transition photo of it's change from caterpillar to pupa. Yesterday morning, he was out! Here, he is: a male Black Swallowtail butterfly drying his wings. (Which is the only time they are still enough for a really good photo!) Male Black Swallowtail In my daily observations of the pupa, I noticed that the black of the wings becomes visible through the skin of pupa the night before they're due to pop out. He'd been out at least 45 minutes to an hour when I took this photo, and it was 8:30 in the morning then. He'd been out enough to be able to strong enough to flutter into a neighboring tree where a human with a camera wouldn't bother him while he finished up preparing for butterfly life. (It takes about 2 hours for their circulation to fully strengthen their wings.) I know it's a male by the quantity of yellow spotting. A female has a minor amount of spotting and...