Newly emerged Swallowtail & Scoliid Wasps

Last night we got one heck of a storm, tornado warnings and all. Rain last night was about 3 inches. Tonight we got another 2 1/2 inches, the pond even looks a bit higher. So it's wet out there, the wettest summer I can recall here.

Between the rains we had a female Black Swallowtail emerge in the garden this morning. She stayed perched for well over an hour after I shot this photos.

This female Black Swallowtail while watching her with my camera would flick her wings open, with my point and shoot camera it was all about timing to get the wings open like this. She had not yet taken her first flight when I took these photos. I can recall in the past watching females like this get mated by males before she ever flew. Today it was very wet for any butterflies to be out.

No flash, just natural light.

An update on meg's classroom Black Swallowtails, so far the kids have released 5 butterflies. Meg by herself released 7 on Saturday, so 12 so far and another 13 left, if they did not emerge today.

 Above and below we have a  Double-banded Scoliid (Scolia bicincta) wasp. Seeing these everywhere right now, the Mountain Mint is full of them. These are parasitic wasps that lay their eggs on scarab beetle grubs. 

 Below is a  Blue-winged Wasp (Scolia dubia). The females of this wasp species searches out Green June Beetle grubs and Japanese Beetle grubs to raise their young on them. Sounds beneficial to me.