I've gotten many photos the last few days of all kinds of winged creatures feeding on the 2010 crop of Echinacea purpurea outside my office window. In the past few days I've been interested in some black butterflies. There are three species that I'm still trying to sort through: pipevine swallowtails, spicebush swallowtails and female eastern tiger swallowtails that come in a black model as well as a yellow one. I'm pretty sure that I have not seen a pipevine this year so far, but I believe that I may have both spicebush and black female eastern tigers -- still trying to get a decent picture of what I think is the spicebush swallowtail.
I'm pretty sure this one is an eastern tiger:
[Photo by Cathie Bird]
I finally figured out to look for the tiger-stripe pattern that is still discernible even on the dark females. Here's a yellow one (not sure if this one is male or female) for comparison:
[Photo by Cathie Bird]
