Butterflies of the Bay Area and (Slightly) Beyond

Liam O'Brien is a self-taught lepidopterist and illustrator. He used to be a professional actor, having appeared in Les Misérables on Broadway, but shifted his powers of observation towards nature several decades back. He's fascinated not only by butterflies but also by our relationships to them. He surveyed the county of San Francisco, where he lives, for which butterfly species remained in 2007 and 2009. He is the creator of the Green Hairstreak Project for the organization Nature in the City, and he led efforts to restore Variable Checkerspots to the Presidio. Since 2015 he has helped monitor the endangered Mission Blue butterfly in the Marin Headlands. O'Brien was the recipient of Bay Nature magazine's Local Hero Award for Environmental Education in 2014. He lives in San Francisco.

"This comprehensive and gorgeous book is so full of reverence for the prettier flying insects in our midst, so lacking in pretension, and so easy to understand, it’'l inspire even the most fervent city-dwellers to get outside and find the little buggers." —KQED"O’Brien has produced a comprehensive but nontraditional guide to local butterflies, one that combines accurate and detailed scientific information with anecdotes, many funny, and gorgeous paintings that took three years to complete." —East Bay Express"In his book, O'Brien works to set the record straight on a few misconceptions about butterflies in general. In an intentional subversion of the field guide status quo, his drawings put the female morphology front and center." —Mission Local"If you live in the Bay Area and wish to know the butterflies, this is the only field guide you'll ever need. Liam O’Brien is a passionate observer, a talented artist and a dedicated ecologist who, among other things, helped reintroduce the Variable Checkerspot to the Presidio. If they gave this book to every high school graduate in the state, it would be a classic within a generation." —Lewis Hyde, author of The Gift"I can think of no other butterfly book that matches this one in sheer beauty, passion, and depth of local knowledge. Confiding, charming, and witty, Liam's reliable text is a grand gift to butterfly lovers, and his art is original among butterfly painters. A thing of wonder and joy." —Robert Michael Pyle, author of The National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Butterflies and Butterflies of the Pacific Northwest

• IntroductionWhat is a Butterfly?The Parts of a ButterflyThe Scales Have ItOn MetamorphosisOn MigrationA Shout-out for the MothsOn Nets and CollectingOn Common Names and Latin Names and the Big Bag of Crazy Those AreOn Butterfly CountsOn Butterfly WatchingThe Best Butterfly Walks in the Greater Bay AreaAlum Rock ParkKent Pump RoadGarrapata State ParkMitchell Canyon Trail to Eagle RockChews RidgePinnacles National ParkThe Structure of These EntriesThe Skippers (Hesperiidae)The Swallowtails (Papilionidae)Tigers on Market StreetThe Whites, Sulphurs, Marbles and Orangetips: (Pieridae)Bilateral Gynandromorphism The Brush-foots (Nymphalidae)On Silverspots, Lumpers and SplittersInterview with Mia MonroeThe Gossamer-Winged: Blues, Coppers, Hairstreaks and Metalmarks (Lycaenidae) The Green Hairstreak Project In the Shadow of XercesOn a Mission The Metalmarks (Riodinidae)The Hope ButterflyXerces Rising (Sort Of ...)AcknowledgementsAppendix A: StraysAppendix B: Tableaux KeysOrganizationsGlossaryBibliographyIndex of ButterfliesIndex of Host PlantsAbout the AuthorA Note on Type