Learn to identify the butterflies you see, and find out what to plant in your garden so they visit you at home!
Butterflies are likely the most popular insects in the entire insect class. With their large, brightly colored wings and beneficial pollinator roles in the ecosystem, it's no wonder they have such a big fan base amongst their human observers. But for anyone who's ever wondered which exact butterfly it is that they're admiring, there's a new resource with all the answers: the Butterflies Backyard Guide.
Replete with more than fifty of the most common butterflies in North America, the book is a fully illustrated guide that makes it easy to identify these fragile winged insects. Each butterfly in the book is presented on a two-page spread with images and facts about the butterfly, as well as tips for what gardeners can plant in order to attract that particular butterfly to visit their backyards. Other information provided for each butterfly includes: size, lifespan, habitat, diet, range, predators, and reproduction. Butterflies Backyard Guide is organized by major butterfly type, so readers can easily flip open the guide and zero in on the facts about the specific butterfly they're identifying.
Keep this guide close at hand for a quick analysis of the iridescent butterflies you see floating from flower to flower. You'll be pointing out Monarchs, Eastern Tiger Swallowtails, and Common Buckeyes before you know it.
Erin Gettler is a naturalist, writer, photographer, and artist with a deep love for the ecological treasures found in urban areas and suburban backyards. She shares her curiosity about the natural world, from birds and bugs to butterflies and botany, through her words, photographs, and paintings. Gettler has written for the blogs Bird Watcher's Digest (for which she was a founding contributor) and The Last Word On Nothing. She currently writes for Seventh Generation's corporate blog on the subject of conservation. Gettler lives in the Pine Barrens of Long Island, New York, with her husband and her feisty rescue kitten. Her websites include:
Birdseed: A Field Guide In Small Bites www.birdseedfieldguide.tumblr.com and
The Familiar Wilderness www.thefamiliarwilderness.com
Bill Thompson III (Whipple, OH) is the editor and co-publisher of Bird Watcher's Digest. He's also a keen birder, the author of many books, a field trip leader, an ecotourism consultant, the host of the This Birding Life podcast, and a regular speaker and performer on the birding festival circuit. His North American life list is somewhere between 673 and 675. His favorite bird is the red-headed woodpecker. His "spark bird" was a snowy owl. He has watched birds in 25 countries and 44 states, but his favorite place to watch is on the 80-acre farm he shares with his wife, artist and writer Julie Zickefoose. Some kind person once called Bill "the Pied Piper of Birding" and he has been trying to live up to that moniker ever since.
billofthebirds.blogspot.com
