The Eastern tiger swallowtail(Papilio glaucus)can be tough to miss. It's a pretty big butterfly, and the color does pull your eye to it immediately.This specimen I spotted this afternoon while walking into the house after work. I have much better photos of the TST from years past, times when the sun was at a better angle, but what makes this worthy is simple; it's the first TST I've seen on our property this season. Yes, I have seen a few, and I mean FEW, elsewhere, but this is the first here.
Three years ago, we had a backyard full of them. Two years ago there were fewer - I thought it to be a fluke. Last year they were sparse. This year, this is the first. And it's almost August.
Home gardeners can easily tell the time of the growing season by the saddening shape of the Coneflower upon which this butterfly sits. Both butterfly and echinacea are showing unmistakable signs of decline, indicating that Summer is indeed sliding into Autumn.Although I don't hang out a lot on butterfly boards and blogs, there was a need to visit a few over the last several weeks just to see if others have noticed the small number of butterflies.
The sad fact is, yes, in many sections of the NE USA.
This is an explanation from one very serious and published butterfly hobbyist. "Basically, the extreme and unseasonable weather patterns this past winter, spring and summer across all of North America with extreme temperature and moisture swings have been devastating to Lepidoptera, hummingbirds, song birds and even local wild creatures in all of NA"
The end of the world? Nah, of course not, but very sad news if true. If there is some good news, and there appears to be, it's that in many parts of the Mid-Atlantic and NE USA butterflies, hummingbirds, etc., seem to be in abundance.
I said it in another post, I'll say it again; no sense in us trying to save the planet, the planet is going nowhere, we are. Even if it takes thirty-seven million years, the planet will heal itself completely, which will be thirty-seven million years after the planet disposes of its biggest enemy, and that would be us. What else is new...
