It's a female spicebush swallowtail, Sandy - beautiful!
I don't recall ever seeing a butterfly dive bomb a bee, so maybe it's a Jersey thing. :)
And please keep "monopolizing" this site - the more postings the better!
Sherry

How can you tell the difference between males and females? Is it differences in coloration or body shapes or other markers?

Your spicebush swallowtail has a lot of blue on the lower part of her hindwings. The coloring on the hindwings of male spicebush swallowtails is somewhat variable, but can be either aqua blue, blue gray, or gray green.
You can tell she's a spicebush swallowtail by the spots on the edges of her wings, lunules I think they're called.
You can see that she's not a black swallowtail by the absence of the red "eyes" with the distinctive black "pupils" at the base of her hindwings in the center.
You can see she's not a black tiger by, again, the lunules, also the distribution of the blue on the hindwings.
Do you have a field guide, Sandy? Butterflies of North America by Brock and Kaufman is very good!
Sherry

Thank you so much! I will try to get my hands on that guide. I've been using a website called "Discover Life" but its been running really slow, and recently started telling me that everything is a spring azure regardless of the characteristics I enter!

I know Miss Sherry has posted pictures of these before but I found these today as I was going through my picture folders. Just saw a male that was silverish green this morning puddling on the ground.

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Wow, really striking! He's gorgeous!

Monkeybelle - that's actually two different males. That is what Miss Sherry was saying about the color difference in the males.

Yes, Mary, I've got lots of pictures of male spicebush swallowtails, but only a few of females. There's been a female nectaring in my garden off and on for the past several days, but she won't be still long enough for me to get a decent picture of her. So here's an old picture of a female, who happened to rest on some gravel long enough for me to get her picture - she's got the typical, true blue female coloring on her hindwings -
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Here's a picture I took of a male at high noon, and the sun REALLY glistened off his wings -
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Here's a picture of a male that I took in early spring when the wild azaleas were in bloom. He had to have been a newly emerged butterfly, but he's gray -
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Here's the most typical male -
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And here's an individual who appears to be green. Maybe the blue in his coloring had just faded, or maybe the camera made him look this way -
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Sherry

I absolutely love the green in the last one Sherry! That is so interesting how he's got green on his hind wing. :)

~Tina Marie

Are butterflies typically known to dive-bomb bumble bees (and other buterflies) and try to knock the bees/butterflies off the flowers?

Usually what I observe is the other way around, bumble bees and carpenter bees knocking the butterflies off the flowers. I've watched bees going after Monarchs on the Tithonia and Echinacea.

The coloring on your female is much bluer than the one I posted on the other spicebush post yesterday. I have seen males that are more geenish than blue or silver. There just seems to be alot of variance in this species colors for sure but all are so pretty to me. They are one of my favorites.

mboston...I re-read your original message...and apparently I need a vacation! My brain is FRIED! :)

Sherry, I love that green. So pretty!

Terrene, I am wishing that I had thought to switch the camera to video mode...that spicebush was quite displeased that it had to share with bees and skippers! It left the tiger alone, but anything smaller than it got knocked around!

Wow,,, I must have peace and harmony here, my bee's and butterfly's share the flowers::

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Great shot!