Giant swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes)

Responding to a cry of "Stan, come quickly!!!" I stumbled out of my office this afternoon, prepared to confront any of a plethora of domestic catastrophes, only to be greeted by my smiling spouse, who was beckoning me toward the back garden.

Giant Swallowtails are not rare in Wisconsin, but they are distinctly uncommon, since their preferred host plants are citrus trees. They fully deserve their common name; this one had about a four-inch wingspan, and was so happy to nectar on our swamp milkweed that he allowed me to get the camera within a few inches. I couldn't "freeze" the wings with my little point-and-shoot, since they were in constant motion on this windy summer day.

Addendum: It's hard to see on the small photo here, but on the underside of the forewing, the swallowtail has streaks of orange powder - that's the pollen from stargazer lilies, where he had been nectaring before venturing onto the swamp milkweed. Re the latter, for those interested in butterflies, Asclepias incarnata is a real butterfly (and bumblebee) magnet, and despite its name does not require swampy conditions.

p.s. In response to popular demand (i.e. someone asked me last month...), I've set up a Flickr photostream. There's nothing special to see there now - just pix I've already used for this blog or for my other new blog on the Civilian Conservation Corps. I'm still trying to work out how to mesh the Flickr with this blog - can't seem to upload directly to an already written post, can't adjust the photo size, can't upload without extraneous captions, etc. But it has potential. We'll see...