Caterpillar

His cam isn't too good! Green on brown. What's a chokecherry GT?

What a beauty.

Not hiding at all is he TG? Chokecherry is a hardy fruit 'tree' common in the northern US/Canada. Prunus virginiana, the Canada Red, is this one. I only got one berry. Bit of local lore from up here, in spring the first planting day is the day the chokecherry blooms.

Thank you Grandmage, I'm posting a shot of the swallowtail it becomes.

Thank you. :~)

Thanks! Now I know and a bit of folk lore to boot!

Anytime. :-)

I remember these "I think" does it have like a face on it

If he's an EASTERN tiger swallowtail...what's he doing in the extreme north west???? wow....he's brave or his parent was! :-). Do you have a terrarium where you could allow him to pupate? then he could flit among your houseplants all winter... ya think maybe? lol....Wow!

wow.... huge one, considering the size of the leaf

This is a big one. The butterfly it makes is the following pic. This is a common one here, and spends about one life cycle here, before migrating south again along the east coast I think.

That is an interesting comment...
Did I understand it properly?
The species spend one cycle in your place .. and the next cycle would happen somewhere else?

Are they compelled to move far?

Their life span is so short, how come are they able to accomplish moving to another place?

This butterfly, like the monarch and maybe even your blue ones, migrate quite a long way . And one of the most amazing things about this migration is that they have such short life-cycles, often the migration takes multiple generations to accomplish. The monarch takes five generations to travel from Central America to Canada every year. All for the sake of optimal feeding and breeding grounds. The eastern swallowtail travels back down the coast to winter in more temperate climes, just like our migratory birds. The life cycle portion I recently learned and it is very fascinating. One of the more wondrous things about the monarch, longest ravel route of all. I watched it on the planet earth series, really well depicted.

I agree, Gt....was observing that we haven't seen many monarchs this year...and thought that the reason was possibly that their migration was upset or perhaps stalled because of the extreme weather this summer in the lower 48...Started seeing them around the end of August..and still see the very odd one even with the shortening days and the colder nights. There were many more swallowtails..just a delight. They were around the lilac in record numbers but moved about so quickly that getting a pic was a challenge. Have you seen many monarchs in Alaska? there were millions of dragonflies here this year too...how about up there?

I agree, Gt....was observing that we haven't seen many monarchs this year...and thought that the reason was possibly that their migration was upset or perhaps stalled because of the extreme weather this summer in the lower 48...Started seeing them around the end of August..and still see the very odd one even with the shortening days and the colder nights. There were many more swallowtails..just a delight. They were around the lilac in record numbers but moved about so quickly that getting a pic was a challenge. Have you seen many monarchs in Alaska? there were millions of dragonflies here this year too...how about up there?

sorry don't know how that happened...getting used to a different keyboard on my laptop... red face...!

No worries. I had a multiple post pic the other day, my first! Lots of swallowtail, but I've never seen a monarch. They don't come up this far.

So much for zipping off an unconsidered reply, aye? I suppose if I had taken a second of thought I'd have realized that they don't go as far north as Fairbanks, but was looking at a YT site the other day of Hummingbirds in Alaska being fed from peoples hands! That truly would be a feat for the monarchs to fly from Baja to Fairbanks! I suppose I was thinking if hummingbirds...why not Monarchs?...lol. Do you have snow yet, Gt? Heard a report yesterday that there was snow in Whitehorse, YK.

I drove up from the Gulkana two days ago and the snow was working down the mountainside. Tok, has been below freezing for two weeks, that is closest to Whitehorse. I'm looking at about -2 or-3 C each night now. Could have been a month ago really, but I think snow will still be a week or two. I've only lost impatients and the lower placed begonias. Even the dahlia is still trying its best to keep going.

My trip was amazing, I'll try whipping up a blog.