Butterflies of the Bay Area and (Slightly) Beyond

An Illustrated Guide

Liam O'Brien

$89.99

Hardback

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English

Heyday Books
13 November 2025

Watercolours; Insects (entomology); Wildlife: butterflies, other insects & spiders

An illustrated obsession, a guidebook, a kaleidoscope of life on the wing.

""If you live in the Bay Area and wish to know the butterflies, this is the only field guide you'll ever need."" -Lewis Hyde, author ofThe Gift

Liam O'Brien has spent three decades chasing, learning about, protecting, occasionally catching, and always loving butterflies. Here, he shares his capacious knowledge of California butterflies through a treasure trove of stories and 700 gorgeous, hand-drawn illustrations-featuring both adult forms and caterpillars-of the 135 species that live in the greater Bay Area. This sumptuous book also shares practical tips for finding and identifying all the butterflies who call the Bay Area home. Learn which plants nurture Silver-spotted Skippers, which trail to hike to see Swallowtails flitting creek-side, and why so many butterflies cluster on hilltops. Share in the joy that O'Brien brings to the study of butterflies, and join the community scientists contributing to our understanding of Monarchs, Metalmarks, and Marbles-and what they need to survive and thrive in our busy Bay Area.

By: Liam O'Brien
Imprint: Heyday Books
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 241mm, Width: 177mm,
ISBN: 9781597146852
ISBN 10: 1597146854
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 13 November 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Introduction What is a Butterfly? The Parts of a Butterfly The Scales Have It On Metamorphosis On Migration A Moment for the Moths On Nets and Collecting On Common Names and Latin Names and the Big Bag of Crazy that That Is On Butterfly Watching The Structure of this Book On Butterfly Counts The Best Places to See Butterflies in the Greater Bay Area The Skippers (Hesperiidae) The Swallowtails (Papilionidae) Essay: Tigers on Market Street The Whites, Sulphurs, Marbles and Orangetips: (Pieridae) Bilateral Gynandromorphism The Brush-foots (Nymphalidae) An Aberrant Form Interview: Mia Monroe On Silverspots, Lumpers and Splitters The Gossamer-Winged: Blues, Coppers, Hairstreaks and Metalmarks (Lycaenidae) Essay: The Green Hairstreak Project Essay: In the Shadow of Xerces Tableau #20 The Almost Indistinguishable, Barely Discernible Differences Between an Acmon Blue vs. a Clemence’s Blue. Essay: On a Mission Essay: Xerces Rising Appendix 1: Tableaux pages Acknowledgements Glossary Bibliography Organizations Index About the Author A Note on Type

Liam O'Brien is a self-taught lepidopterist and illustrator. He used to be a professional actor, having appeared in Les Miserables 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.

Reviews for Butterflies of the Bay Area and (Slightly) Beyond: An Illustrated Guide

""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