swallowtailBUTTERFLY

Swallowtails come to visit every summer and lay their eggs on my garden.
Dill, fennel and parsley seem to be the plants of choice.
They start out as an egg the size of a pin head, hatch to a black caterpillar with a white stripe and
get the nice color after a week of so. They eat their way through my herbs each year. When the caterpillars are munching on the fennel, you can smell the licorice scent of the plant a few feet away. They can eat a four foot fennel plant in a week.