We are excited to announce that my butterfly book is now available on our website, in the Dewees Nature Center (where profits benefit the Dewees Island Conservancy), and at Amazon.com.
I always wanted a guidebook that could explain the ways the wildlife in my own backyard was all connected. And one with a lot of photos that I could share with my children (and my friends, and my parents) so everyone could connect to the backyard magic!
It all started with a display I was working on for the Dewees Nature Center. I wanted to show how our backyard butterflies progressed through the different stages of their lives, and after I got the display up, I thought we might as well try to expand it into a book.
The book is 98 pages long, and takes you through the life stages of many of our local butterflies.
We start with a general introduction to lepidoptera, the life cycle, and many of the amazing features and adaptations of butterflies, including aposemitism, camouflage, concealment, deception, mimicry, and offensife tastes and smells.
Sulfurs
Hairstreaks and Blues
Skippers and Duskywings
Moths
Every fall, I have to look up how to tell the orange butterflies apart, or which swallowtail has a spotted or striped body. This book collected all my charts for butterfly identification into one handy place.
Some press from Lowcountry Parent Magazine
Here is a link to an article about the book in the Post and Courier’s Lowcountry Parent Magazine. I think my favorite question was the last one, where the author asked me about the benefits of creating butterfly habitat (and getting out there to watch butterflies.)
… it is good for you. There’s lots of research about the different ways nature engages your brain. Given today’s crazy pace, watching a caterpillar munch on a leaf can be an amazingly meditative act.
You don’t have to travel halfway around the world or go off the grid to immerse yourself in nature and witness incredible things. The transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly is one of the most miraculous phenomena on the planet, and it’s something you can experience right in your own backyard. It’s a reminder that wonder is always within reach, even in the most familiar places!
