Garden Pic of the Day: Swallowtails & Soggy Gardens
I'm so excited! I found a Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillar in my pot of Flat-Leaf Parsley! I was just in time to get a couple photos, too, because he was finished eating and resting on a piece of pine straw prior to setting off for his next stage of development! Here he is! I put some sticks in the pot, hoping he'd stay in the pot for his crystalis stage---but no, he disappeared. I read that they seek "a secure place" to hide and transform. But---apparently he had a brother, because at the time we were looking at this one, my husband turned around and noticed a second caterpillar above the sliding door frame. He had already spun his bit of silk to secure himself there and was on his way into the crystalis stage. He still looked like a caterpillar, though--just sort of scrunched up and stiff. I picked him off there and put him in a container topped with cheesecloth. This morning, he is entirely transformed into hi...