They said she was on her way, and on June 12, there she was - the Giant Swallowtail, floating through the flower beds, the largest butterfly I have ever seen in these parts. I hadn’t heard she was coming so I grabbed a camera to document the find, and a day later a naturalist friend identified her, telling me there had been recent media reports about how this species is moving north.
I didn’t think, when I saw her a few more times, whether she might have special needs, this creature forced northwards by global warming, even though the question of assisted migration is one of my
preoccupations. Then today, I was moving some potted Hop Trees out of a sheltered location close to the potted Northern Catalpas, thinking they all need a bit more space, a bit more sun, so they’re ready to be planted out at some stage.
That’s when I saw it. The poo on the leaf. And then I noticed that the poo, at first glance the poo of a very large bird, in fact had a structure, markings, and evidence of activity: the Hop Tree leaf that supported it was half gone.
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