As beautiful as most butterflies are, they are not always the flitting creatures of elegance we often presume. "Tempted as we are to think of butterflies as pureness and delight, it's worthwhile to watch for them on poop and carrion, which they feed on," points out David Lee Myers in this book of North American butterflies.
That passing primer of butterfly behavior is attached to a photo from Big Bend National Park, where Myers found a Vesta Crescent butterfly on what looks to be some horse manure.
The author's encyclopedic approach to chronicling the continent's butterflies has to be viewed as a work of tenacity. If you've ever tried to keep up with a butterfly as it fluttered across your yard or through a meadow, you know that.
Myers' doggedness in pursuit comes across not only in the more than 400 color photos, but in where he found some of them. For instance, take the shot of the California Tortoiseshell photographed in Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Oregon. It was in the grasp of a spider that was in a flower blossom.
Indeed, the author, a natural history and landscape photographer for more than five decades, showcases more than a few butterflies captured by predators. But that's life, and not just in a butterfly's world.
This not-quite 300-page book is rich, and not just in butterfly images, of which there are many. Those are displayed page after page after page, in all manners. There are page-consuming shots, such as the one of the brightly colored Melissa Blues consumating their union somewhere in California (how difficult -- and timely -- was that to capture?), and half-page images, such as the one taken in Big Bend of a Mexican Yellow hard to see on first glance as it's deep into a yellow prickly pear bloom, lapping some nectar.
There are pages filled with snapshots of similarly hued butterflies. Take page 52, for instance. It displays images of Echo Azures and Western Tailed-Blue (captured in the same photo), Echo Azure, Melissa Blue, Marine Blue, and Silvery Blue.
Beyond the photos, the book is organized in an instructive fashion with supporting text. Myers provides us with a chapter on butterfly taxonomy, another on what to look for in butterfly markings when you're in the field, devotes one chapter to Monarchs, portrays threats to butterflies and their death (as described above in the case of the California Tortoiseshell), presents us with the "Next Generation" (which is as obvious a section as the name indicates), and provides one on the habitats of butterflies.
Not all images are razor-sharp, which should provide no small measure of solace to others who have gone in pursuit of butterflies with cameras in tow.
For those determined to hone their lepidopterist skills, as well as those just wanting to know what species went flitting by, this is a good book to have. If there's any disappointment, it's that the book is hardcover, and so not easily stuffed into your daypack.
