So long coming

So worth the wait!

Male pipevine swallowtail/Photo by Mike McEvoy

It was early days for us living along a migration flyway, Lake Ontario’s north shore, when a stunning pipevine swallowtail showed up, flitted over the garden and flew on. Dennis and I both saw it—were we out there picking beans? tomatoes? —and practically melted in delight.  I did, anyway. And we decided at once to try to procure its host plant, Dutchman’s pipe, so that next time such a glorious visitor appeared it would feel right at home, lay eggs in our yard and produce lots more of these beautiful butterflies.

Dennis tracked down a vine at a specialty garden shop and we waited patiently as it climbed up the old volleyball net we hung against the beachstone chimney of our aged, winterized cottage. Full sun. Lots of rain. It grew and grew, and we waited and waited, then pretty much forgot about it until 2012, when, finally, a second beautiful pipevine swallowtail showed up, part of another incursion from where they’re common in the southern States, and started laying eggs on some of the big heart-shaped leaves blanketing our chimney. From the porch, from the balcony I remember peeking out at her, thrilled to be hosting a whole batch of butterflies-in-the-making.  Only to discover that something came along and ate every tiny orange egg within a day or two. Spiders? Red ants? Earwigs? My ignorance was matched by my dismay.

So we waited again. And eventually started yanking up and clipping off Dutchman’s pipe that happily spread through our patch of orange day lilies and fiddlehead ferns to the cedar hedge, and on into the yellow birch—basically everywhere. We even tried to remove them from the chimney, in favour of the fragrant fall-flowering clematis I’d smuggled into Canada from my hometown, a cutting from Trudy Bain’s magnificent backyard vine.

But then this July, arriving home from our granddaughter’s wedding in Brussels, I stepped out on the porch and noticed an interesting caterpillar on a Dutchman’s pipe leaf, black with red dots running down its back, and almost diabolical-looking “horns.”

Eureka!!  I raced inside for our caterpillar field guide and slapped it down, page open, in front of Dennis.  “Guess what?” In our absence a pipevine butterfly must have come by and done her thing. And this time her progeny survived.

There was more than one. Porch and balcony, we kept eagerly counting them, and at one point I could see eleven black caterpillars at once out the balcony door, while lying in bed! They tended to shelter under the leaves, where they were protected from rain. We were more concerned about cardinals suddenly coming close and swooping toward the vines, unusual behavior for these seed-eating finches. From larval to adult stage pipevine swallowtails are supposed to taste terrible to predators, feeding as they do on toxic Dutchman’s pipe. I hoped they’d at the very least give cardinals a tummy ache.

Our good friend Mike McEvoy came by to photograph the caterpillars, presented us with a butterfly hatching tent and explained how to use it. Dennis carefully transferred three larvae, all we could find after being away for two days at a butterfly count, into the tent, with fresh leaves to chomp on. And before long they crawled to the ceiling, found a spot they liked and started pupating.

More chewing our nails and waiting, until two weeks or so later a stunning black butterfly emerged from its chrysalis, flaunting a swirl of orange markings on its outer hindwings, and iridescent cerulean satin inside. Since its and the others’ release we’ve had regular fly-bys of pipevine swallowtails visiting our butterfly bushes and zinnias, fluttering around one another and then flying off.

Claiming territory? Making friends? No sign of mating, but Dennis was watching the Olympics on TV one afternoon and became distracted by repeated movement out the balcony door: swallowtail laying eggs on the growing tip of a Dutchman’s pipe vine.

Mike came over the next morning and photographed the cluster of tiny orange jewels she’d left behind. Breathlessly, we all await the outcome.

Dutchman’s pipe climbing up the chimney, and giant zinnias we plant for visiting butterflies to nectar on

Pipevine swallowtail eggs/Mike McEvoy

Pipevine swallowtail caterpillar/Mike McEvoy

which sprays chemicals from tubules on its forehead when a predator comes too close/Mike McEvoy

Chrysalis attached by silken threads from the roof of Mike’s butterfly hatchery/Mike McEvoy

Just emerged pipevine swallowtail/Dennis Barry

Now flying free