One of the good and educational things about watering any garden by hand is the discoveries you make in the process.  I was headed out to our small garden on the north side of our house this week and saw the largest caterpillar I have ever seen.  It had the girth of a tomato worm (without the horn), but was probably double the length.  Being a rich brown color with turquoise-blue spots and a black collar, I had no clue what it was or what butterfly (or moth) it would become.  The certainty is that the finished product would be big.  There seems to be a vibrant population of the swallowtail butterflies in and around our neighborhood.  I searched the computer for the caterpillar by describing it, and it does become a two-tailed swallowtail.  Funny that I had never seen the caterpillar before.  It also seems to be a bit late in the season.  But given the fact that 2026 has been the warmest summer on record, it made sense that natural schedules might adjust to those conditions.  The next three images show the caterpillar of the Papilio multicaudata or two tailed swallowtail butterfly.  With luck, your computer screen is large enough or you can enlarge the images to see the turquoise dots, the eyes, and what I dare call the Hoovering attachment at the end of the head.  Excellent for slurping up desirable leaves. 

The finished product

butterflies - swallowtail on wallflower 1 Aspen Vista Trail 2026

In addition to garden sleuthing, this week was also time for what has become our traditional anniversary walk up Aspen Vista Trail near the Santa Fe Ski Basin.  On our way up the trail, we exchanged greetings with a couple of lovely people - John and Wendy - headed down the trail.  John showed us a photo he had taken with his phone of a wasp nest roughly 50-100 yards up the trail.  He said it was very near the trail on the left hand side.  They must be avid hikers and keen observers because we thought we had gone farther than the estimated distance and didn't see a thing.  So we just kept walking and suddenly saw the nest.  It was extremely well hidden, as you can see from the photograph below.  Beautifully crafted around and cradling the aspen leaves within the "paper" of the nest, it was deftly created by paper wasps.  One of my missions was to get as close to the nest as my camera and lens would allow without disturbing the wasps.  

In addition to a hole at the bottom of the nest, there was a crack on the back side, shown here.  

Just to make sure I would be able to make a decent image documenting the paper wasp nest, I shot the one below with a low flash setting.

Thanks to Louise and Jim, Victoria, Tim, Geula, Jean & Sam, Diane D., Marilyn G., Rebecca, and Catherine for writing this week.  Tim and Christina - I hope your respective upcoming photographic sojourns will be enriching and wonderful.

May the first days of September present many diverse and exciting photographic opportunities!

until next Monday,

DB

a passion for the image©