![\"Photo](\"http:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BlackSwallowtailonNaturalCrooksDotCom.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWhat Kind of Black Beauty?<\/h2>\n
When we first saw the dark wings and swallowtail-hind-wing extensions, we weren\u2019t sure if we were seeing a Black Swallowtail or a black female colour variant of the more common Yellow Swallowtails. In our neighbourhood, Yellow Swallowtails are a fairly common sight in June.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve seen the dark-variant females in our back yard before.<\/p>\n
If you look below the antenna you can just make out two criss-crossing black lines: one is a leg then other is the butterfly’s proboscis which it’s using to sip moisture.<\/em><\/p>\n This butterfly had stopped to sip up moisture from between some interlocking driveway bricks. We stepped carefully closer making sure our shadows didn\u2019t cross the drinker\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n The large number of yellow markings confirmed this was a Black Swallowtail.<\/p>\n Well, upon reading at home, I discovered our particular Black Swallowtail was a male so it won\u2019t be laying any eggs personally! The males have more yellow spots and fewer blue markings than the females. However, he might find a partner in which case eggs would be possible.<\/p>\n As children, my brothers and I had often seen the large green, yellow and black caterpillars of this kind of swallowtail growing fat on the carrot leaves growing in our garden. And we\u2019d found one in that same back yard on my mother\u2019s parsley a few years ago.<\/p>\n I haven\u2019t seen any here at our home, though, so this year we\u2019ll be keeping a closer eye on our parsley and our carrot leaves!<\/p>\n Related Reading<\/strong><\/p>\n Join In<\/strong> You never know who you’ll encounter when you walk to school! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[273,5],"class_list":["post-2691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focus","tag-black-swallowtail","tag-butterflies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2691"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8356,"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691\/revisions\/8356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\nWhere Might Our Black Swallowtail Lay Eggs?<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n\n
\nDo you have Swallowtails in your neighbourhood? Have you seen them \u201cpuddling\u201d on your lawn or sidewalk? Please share your sightings with a comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"