A great favorite partly because it's the swallowtail species I've seen least often (though I don't see the giant locally, we saw it frequently at our previous home) and partly because that blue abdomen is unusual and special.

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Flickr Lounge: one subject, two ways

We saw at least four tiger swallowtails, first of the season for me, and this lovely female actually flew to the perfect perch and let me move carefully close to her.

Tags:   tiger swallowtail swallowtail butterfly spring insect basking

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Compositionally Challenged has an "impressionistic effects" challenge this week, so I took several nature photos (making sure to include a sunflower-type photo) and ran them through funny.pho.to, choosing the "impressionism" effect under "sketches and paintings." I didn't like most of the results, but for the photos that gave decent results, I have uploaded both the original and the final results, in pairs. Some of the "impressionism" ones probably won't stay in my feed.

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99/100

Like many feeding swallowtails, its wings were a blur of constant motion.

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Flickr Lounge: pair

I watched and photographed this pair on three different plants. This was my first pair of mating swallowtails. I have seen more mating butterflies this year than ever before: four or five pairs of monarchs, a pair of pearl crescents, and these. Later a pair of skippers.

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