First Swallowtail

I’ve had my head down on my upcoming book release, but not so much that I missed this:

The first swallowtail I’ve seen in our townhouse yard–or habitat as I like to refer to it. I’m dismayed by how few butterflies there are this season, but then the Joe Pye Weed has just begun to bloom and I am just back from a month in Colorado so I might have missed them.

The butterflies are a bit tricky to photograph because the flowers are so tall. This sub-species that was only supposed to get 5 feet tall, but 20 years later is easily 7 feet. And sway.

My habitat does attract a lot of native bees, and I’m signing up for the Backyard Bumblebee Count sponsored by iNaturalist. It runs July 13 – 21st. I hope to improve my identifications skills of our local eastern North American bumblebees–there are only 21.