Another swallowtail

With the Mary's first black swallowtail hatched and released the second chrysalis looked like it was ready to hatch also. Mary had me take the chrysalis home with me because it was starting to wiggle on it's own and looked like it would hatch at any minute.

I wanted to get a picture of the butterfly bursting out and so I hurried home and put the cage next to my couch where I could wait with camera in hand. Unfortunately I was tired and soon fell asleep for a short time and the butterfly sensing that I was not watching decided to come out. Since we live in a townhouse we don't have much of a yard so I decided to go to my parents house to release the butterfly and visit. No one was home but I decided to go into the back yard to release the butterfly and snap some shots anyway.

At first I placed the butterfly on one of the flowers in the garden. It sat for a while drying it's wings.

Then I decided that the flowers might be too low. Placing it on something higher would give it some height to fly from and would make it less vulnerable to ants.

So I found it this nice flowering bush. I took a couple more shots and then left it on it's own to be free. Mary still has 4 more caterpillar so I will prolly have more pictures to share in future posts.