So beautiful!
~Laura

Ohhh ... you are so fortunate! My first Eastern Black Swallowtail eclosed a few days ago, and I'm waiting for two more. Hopefully the five cats I have right now will make it all the way through.

I have seen a tiger swallowtail fluttering around my yard for over a month, but had not made a point of obtaining any host plants for it. I'm on a mission now, as one spent 10 minutes checking out every plant in my yard, apparently looking for a suitable place to deposit eggs. It was not nectaring ... just checking things out.

One of my local nurseries has a Sweet Bay that I shall check out. The other had a tuliptree (for $50) that I will have to pass on.

Yes, I am fortunate to live in the country where there are a lot of butterflies!

The plant I find tiger cats on most commonly is wild black cherry/Prunus serotina, a tree. Around here, it's practically a weed, so I'm using it to raise the three tiger cats I found most recently on Ptelea trifoliata, another bush or small tree they use. Tigers use a real wide variety of host plants, mostly trees, from many different families, so I'm sure you can find a good tiger host!

Sherry

I was just reading on another site that said that the only time you will get black females is where there are alot of pipevine females also.
the site also said that sasafrass is a host plant.. I have a ton of that around my house and I have only seen one female with very tattered wings.. I should go check those trees over really well.

Beautiful! I have already observed a female ETS ovipositing on the Black cherry trees in my yard this Spring - but she is always up WAY too high for me to collect the eggs.