Butterfly

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Butterflies turn up their proboscises at the flowers in my garden. They prefer a hot sunny spot and my garden is cool and shady. But over the years, I have planted perennials, shrubs and trees that the caterpillars need for food.




The monarch caterpillars eat plants in the milkweed family. These two large fellas are feasting on common milkweed, Asclepias syriacus.





The spicebush swallowtail eats foliage from spicebushes and sassafras trees. The large "eyes" are fakes, designed to intimidate predators.





This year, I only saw two Eastern black swallowtail caterpillars on the parsley.






The pipevine swallowtail caterpillar feeds on pipevines. This year, we had a bumper crop.





This pipevine swallowtail has just emerged from her cocoon and dries her wings before floating away to nectar in a sunnier garden.

Good luck, little butterfly.



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