Black Swallowtail Butterfly
Papilio polyxenes. Black Swallowtail Butterfly. My neighbour keeps a vegetable garden as well as a flower garden, and she loves growing dill, which is a popular host plant for caterpillar eggs. She lets the dill self-seed along a two-foot strip
Dragonfly
Dragonfly. Order: Odonata; Suborder: Epiprocta; Infraorder: Anisoptera Dragonfly. What a great name to assign to these hard working predator insects. Apart from any utilitarian reason for liking dragonflies, they are in their own right simply wonderful to watch. They are
Canadian Tiger Swallowtail
Papilio canadensis. Canadian Tiger Swallowtail. Family: Papilionidae. If you take an interest in northern woodland butterflies, you have likely seen the Canadian Tiger Swallowtail before. I, however, was privileged to have my first up-close view of the Tiger Swallowtail while
Ants and Peonies
I am usually careful, when giving a bouquet of peonies to a friend or relative, to ensure that the recipients are prepared to kill or transport a few ants that will eventually come crawling off of the blossoms. Sometimes they
