The one remaining black swallowtail butterfly emerged from his cocoon this morning. (I wonder where the other two crawled off to just before they pupated.) As I understand it the process takes a couple of hours. I first noticed it at 11:35 am and he was fully outside the cocoon.  I was able to photograph it stretching and moving around the parsley plant until it finally flew to the post of the deck railing for a minute then off into the great blue yonder. In the bottom photo you can see the remains of the cocoon.

The world got a little more beautiful today and I got to watch the process, almost from the beginning. Very cool!

Here he is!

It's a boy!From the minimal amount of blue and the strong yellow upper row of dots it can be identified as a male. A female would have a lot more blue and weaker yellow dots. 18/16/16 at 2:07pm he flew away, first to the deck rail, then off into the big wide world!From the minimal amount of blue and the strong yellow upper row of dots it can be identified as a male. A female would have a lot more blue and weaker yellow dots. 8/16/16 the butterfly emerged from his cocoon this morningyou cans see the (slightly out of focus) remains of the cocoon on the left of the photo attached to the stem.