Where are my butterflies?

It has been such a cool rainy summer that I have only seen a couple of battered Tiger Swallowtails and two monarchs (one female) in the last month or so. Our county sprayed for mosquitos last year and I am wondering if this has anything to do with the poor showing of butterflies. My neighbor has 10 or 20 butterfly bushes and barely a butterfly comes by. Of course we have lots of cabbage white butterflies and they have been eating my kale. Yesterday I saw a bright yellow butterfly but it flew quickly out of sight. I think it was a Cloudless Sulphur (Phoebis sennae), likes parks, wood edges, any open disturbed area. No surprise that it's hostplant includes senna that well know herbal laxative, my conjecture is that this probably gives predatory birds some problem.

Send me some butterflies please...

Female Black Swallowtail at Siddha!

I started going to the Syddha Yoga Center in Manayunk where they have a lovely parking lot. I was interested in making a garden there. Mercedes showed me the solitary daisy plant that someone had planted on a part of the lot that you can see from the kitchen window. It has bloomed for a few years in the sand, rocks and brick chunks, with a bit of accumulated dirt. while I was out watering the planters I thought I saw a hummingbird but it was actually a black butterfly. No camera in tow, of course. The problem with identifying a butterfly with upper dorsal black wings and lower dorsal "blue" patches in the tail area is that there are several butterflies that choose this color configuration because it mimics the toxic pipevine swallowtail. So it is a survivalist coloring.

I am naming her Kama Sutra. She may be a female Black Swallowtail with a 3.2 inch wingspan whose caterpillars eat carrot, parsley, Queen Anne's Lace, celery, dill, etc. and like fields, roadsides and suburbs. Other mimics of the toxic Pipevine Swallowtail include the female Canadian Tiger Swallowtail; this butterfly has a 3 inch wingspan and generally does not get this far south in SE PA.

It is less likely that Kama Sutra might be a Spicebush Swallowtail which has a large 4 inch wingspan. Since I spotted her without my glasses I am thinking she may be this big. Spicebush Swallowtails like the woodland edges and roadsides and hostplants include spicebush, mature larvae have "snake head" eyespots.

Either way, what a beautiful creature to have visiting us!