Bath's Patch ~ Nature in February

Yesterday, it was almost 60 here and quite sunny. I was so surprised to see there are still 2 Common Buckeye caterpillars feeding on the snapdragons in the garden by the back steps. I believe they go down into the straw when the weather is cold and windy and maybe close to the house foundation. From what I knew this wasn't really something that happens in NJ. I have heard though that back on 1/18/12 Mike C and Wil K found a Common Buckeye eclosing and drying it's at Cape Island Creek Preserve.

Common Buckeye Caterpillar

Spicebush Swallowtail Chrysalis

Black Swallowtail Chrysalis

My Yard ~ Black Swallowtail Butterflies

Male Swallowtail butterfly in the garden

Female Swallowtail butterfly in the garden but still laying eggs on the parsley and rue

Lots of Black Swallowtail caterpillars chowing down

And they ate it all and had to be relocated to another plant

And more BS cats chowing down.  the gardens are filled with them.

Getting ready to pupate

In the gardens

And 24 hrs later it's a chrysalis! 
Will it eclose this season or will it overwinter? There's no way to tell yet.

My Yard ~ Black Swallowtail Chrysalis

Working in the yard today doing some more clean up and came across these 2 Black Swallowtail chrysalis.  That makes 18 BS chrysalis that are overwintering here.  I hope they all overwinter and eclose next May.

My Yard ~ Overwintering Swallowtails

This past fall I had 6 Black Swallowtail caterpillars go into the pupa stage.  They overwintered in my yard and always looked dead but several years ago the same thing happened and one day a butterfly emerged from the chrysalis. This happened again today when I saw a Black Swallowtail butterfly drying it's wings after emerging from the chrysalis. Now there are 5 chrysalis waiting to have butterflies emerge.
So will that happen?