The latest piece to the gallery was inspired by a gardening experience. Last year I decided to grow parsley and carrots in containers. I later noticed a black swallow-tail butterfly fluttering around my container garden. I was enchanted, but didn’t think anything of it.
A week or two later, I noticed caterpillars stripping the leaves off the carrots and parsley. A quick google search revealed they were from the swallow-tail. I had sewn the carrots too thick and in too shallow a pot for them to grow to edible size, so I decided to try my hand at growing butterflies instead.
Black swallow-tail caterpillars change color as they grow, starting out dark with a white saddle patch (visually similar to a bird dropping), and later becoming green with black and yellow stripes. When annoyed, they’ll stick out a small orange stalk from their head (perhaps to look more snake-like?) They can eat their host plants down to the ground, but the plants always seem to grow back, so there appears to be a balance.
Frustratingly, the caterpillars always left the garden when it was time to pupate. I never did find a chrysalis or get to witness any butterflies emerging. I’ll have to try this experiment again sometime; planting members of the parsnip family in hopes of attracting more of these interesting critters.