I went out to cut some sage, and look who I found on a little fennel plant.  Five Black Swallowtail caterpillars.  

 

You can see a bunch of different stages.  The Stokes Butterfly book says that the little caterpillars resemble bird poop, so they don’t get eaten.  Actually, I think they use the word “droppings,” but you get the drift.  As they get bigger, they split and shed their skins.  You can see one that just did that all the way to the right.  See the black stuff behind it?  That one almost didn’t make it into my picture.  Anyway, they are getting bigger.

 

It looks like the butterfly laid eggs on the young fennel plants, not on the older ones.  Too bad, because the young plants are small and won’t be able to support that many caterpillars.  See the two on the right?  They have eaten all the leaves on their two stems.  So I cut those two stems and placed them on other young fennel plants.  

 

Good thing we have lots of fennel.

 

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!