Tiger swallowtail The rain and humidity yesterday gave way to clear, dry, and almost cool skies, and so, to take advantage of the perfect, well, for me, weather, I headed off to the Stonington Land Trust's Miner Preserve to do my amphibians and reptiles survey work. However, the ponds that had dried during July's heat wave remained empty, so I turned my attention to the other part of my survey charge: butterflies and dragonflies, to say nothing of any other insect I happened to run across and could identify. I couldn't find any evidence of monarchs, but there were numerous other lepidopterans flying and nectaring in the late afternoon sunshine. This Tiger Swallowtail was the most cooperative of a trio of its species that worked the Joe Pye Weed. I wonder how it lost its left-side swallowtail—a bird attack, most likely. The wing extension, by drawing attention to itself and away from the insect's body, is expendable and clearly did its job of enabling the butterfly to live—and happily fly—another day.