The Black Swallowtail Butterfly

Yesterday afternoon, I spotted a beautiful butterfly flitting about in the grass of our backyard. It seemed unable to take flight and after inspecting it closely, I sadly realized it was near the end of its life. But what a gorgeous butterfly, one I'd never seen before: black with white spots running along the bottom half of its wings and all over it's body. Higher up on its hindwings were brilliant patches of periwinkle blue punctuated with a bright orange tiger-eye on the inner edge. The underside of the butterfly's wings were even more brilliant with orange and blue patches mixed into the white spots.

I looked it up online and learned that it's a Black Swallowtail butterfly and happens to be quite common to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and to North America in general. Well common or not, it was my first Black Swallowtail encounter, so it was a rare and special treat to have it land in my humble little backyard plot amid the many, rows and rows of houses in our city neighborhood.

I wanted to help it fly even knowing that it was likely futile and that I might damage it's fragile wings by touching it. Eventually I couldn't help but scoop it up ever so gently with a plastic sheet and place it on one of a blue wildflowers. Maybe it could enjoy one final sip of nectar, I thought, but once on the flower, it lost it grip and floated down to the ground. I left it alone for awhile.

When I returned a short while later, I was horrified to see minions of ants swarming over the butterfly. Already the the ants had burrowed into its abdomen, eating its insides. I shuddered. Had the butterfly died before the ants started eating it? I hope so. The insect world is fascinating, yet gruesome and terrifying as any horror movie world.

Summer Solstice

Today the sun cast its light light longer than any other day of the year and that makes it a notable day to start my blog. It was light outside here in Philadelphia until after 9 pm. I didn't take note of the moment when the sun officially set or when it looked "officially" dark, but I looked it up online and found a table that cites sunset was at 8:33 pm and the length of this day here in Philly was 15 hours, 59 seconds.

So about the rogue pumpkin. Last fall I bought a medium-ish pumpkin and left it outside all through the winter. It became deflated-looking, collapsing into itself. Once things thawed a bit in February or March I tried to pick it up to throw it out, but the stem tore off in my hand and all I could do was drop the soggy heap of rotted skins, pulp and seeds into a clay pot I happened to have sitting next to it. Later in the spring a green leaf-shoot emerged from the pumpkin carcass. Now as a witness to its lifecycle, I definitely couldn't throw it out, so I planted the shoot and a few other seedlings, which had also started, in the corner of our small, city backyard.

I knew pumpkins were vine plants and needed a good amount of space, but somehow I believed that if these pumpkins took root, and grew into healthy plants, and bore pumpkins, they would do so in a bonzai manner, keeping tight and small in the 2' x 2' space I alotted them. Well, they have no concern that they're growing in a city backyard and have become huge plants already -- and it's only June. It's months until pumpkin season. One in particular, is advancing out onto the grass, heading for one of our Adirondack lawnchairs, vine tentacles outstretched like a hands feeling for an anchor to wrap itself around. It's almost as if it "sees" the chair and set out to reach it. Fascinating and a little creepy. This is the rogue pumpkin. I suppose I will have to tame this vine, but for know I'm watching and waiting to see what it does.