Have are you faring during the COVID-19 crisis?

If you have a pollinator garden--or access to you--and a camera, you can step out of The Great Indoors and enjoy The Great Outdoors.

A newly eclosed Western Tiger Swallowtail, Papilio rutulus, however, can take your breath away.

This one recently visited our butterfly bush, Buddleia davidii, in our pollinator garden. It fluttered across the garden and headed straight toward one bush: the aptly named butterfly bush. 

Wikipedia tells us: "The genus is found in four continents. Over 60 species are native through the New World from the southern United States south to Chile, while many other species are found in the Old World, in Africa, and parts of Asia, but all are absent as natives from Europe and Australasia. The species are divided into three groups based on their floral type: those in the New World are mostly dioecious (occasionally hermaphrodite or trioecious), while those in the Old World are exclusively hermaphrodite with perfect flowers."

There's a movement afoot NOT to plant Buddleia davidii (see the North American Butterfly Association's "The Great Butterfly Bush Debate"), but we've had ours for a decade, we keep it under control, and we love it for its beauty, its aroma, and its ability to draw a wide variety of insects. 

Insects love it, too. 

The "Tiger King" has nothing on the Western Tiger Swallowtail.

The colorful yellow and black butterfly, Papilio rutulus, reigns supreme. We saw this one last week at the Ruth Storer Garden in the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden. 

"The Western Tiger Swallowtail is basically a species of riparian forest, where it glides majestically back and forth along the watercourse," writes butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, on his website. "It has expanded into older urban neighborhoods where several of its host genera are grown as shade trees, and behaves as if the street were a watercourse. In the high country and on the Sierran east slope its usual host is Aspen."

We've seen it glide majestically and forage on everything from Verbena to lilacs (Syringa) to the butterfly bush (Buddleja). What a treat--especially during the coronavirus pandemic! When you visit the Arboretum, keep your social distance and wear facial masks, per the Yolo County Health Department's current precautions.)

Meet the real Tiger King: the Western Tiger Swallowtail.  

If you've ever reared a butterfly--from an egg to a caterpillar to a chrysalis to an adult--you know what it feels like.

Like a miracle, to see life unfolding.

Our friend, Marilyn Sexton, aka "Anise Swallowtail Butterfly Mama," showed us her Bohart Museum of Entomology habitat that housed two remaining adult butterflies ready to be freed.

It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood, as Mr. Rogers (Fred Rogers, 1928-2003) sang.

Two glorious butterflies, Papilio zelicaon, burst out of their habitat and headed straight for some rich floral nectar. 

It's a common swallowtail butterfly of western North America, and often confused with the Western tiger swallowtail, Papilio rutulus, also in the same range.

Butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, who has monitored butterfly populations in Central California since 1972, says on his website:

"The anise swallowtail is a complex set of ecological races, or 'ecotypes,' whose seasonality has been adjusted by natural selection to match that of their host plants. Selection for adaptive life-history traits seems to have proceeded much faster than evolution at the level of neutral molecular loci.

"At sea level our populations are strongly multivoltine, with only weak, facultative pupal diapause. They have several generations (late February or March-October) and breed very largely on sweet fennel ('anise'), Foeniculum vulgare, and (in the first half of the season) poison hemlock, Conium maculatum. Both of these are naturalized European weeds."

Weeds or not, butterflies or not, anise swallowtails are spectacular.

Yes, 'twas a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

It was "hit and miss."

The predators hit, and they missed.

Oh sure, they took a chunk out of these Western tiger swallowtails, but as they say, "a miss is as good as a mile."

The predators? Could have been a hungry bird, praying mantis, or a spider.

The Western tiger swallowtail, Papilio rutulus, a showpiece throughout western North America, populates urban parks and gardens. In color, it's a striking yellow and black, with spots of blue and orange near its tail. Its magnificent wingspan can measure 3 to 4 inches.

If you like to take images of butterflies, don't pass up the Western tiger swallowtail that's missing a chunk here and there. They don't have to be "picture perfect" to photograph--or to enjoy one of the wonders of nature.