Butterfly Bush II

In my previous Butterfly Bush post I said that I hadn't seen any swallowtails this year.  They are finally back!

Both the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail...

and the Black Swallowtail.

I was lucky to get any decent pictures of the black swallowtail - it kept fluttering his wings almost the entire time it was feeding on the flowers.  I didn't get any open wing photos at all.  I'm pretty sure this is a male, but it also could be the short-tailed swallowtail.  Hard to tell since it was always moving so fast.

Turns out I have both Painted Ladies (see first Butterfly Bush post) AND American Ladies.  In this photo you can see the two large eyespots on this American Lady (Painted Ladies have more).

And the little hummingbird moths are back - the snowberry clearwing.  In the first and last photo you can just barely see the outline of its clear wings which is where it gets its name.

I'm glad all my regular visitors are back!