great britain

Britain’s Butterflies (Fourth Edition)

Britains Butterflies 4th cover

The first visit I made to England was for the 2005 BirdFair. Having landed at Birmingham Airport, I drove a right-side steering car (the first time ever!) to Uppingham – becoming briefly bewildered on the Leicester ring road along the way – where I found my lodgings and kipped for the night. The next morning I rose, consumed a breakfast sufficient to satiate three farmhands, and strolled down the high street, where I was stopped dead in my tracks by the most exquisite butterfly I had up until that point in my life ever seen – a Peacock (Aglais io).

Britain’s Habitats

Britains Habitats cover

One of the many things I love about Great Britain is the combination of its remarkable number of natural habitats and their relative close proximity to one another. Even if time spent exploring is limited to a mere weekend, one can traverse multiple natural habitats and in the process be afforded the delights to be found observing the flora, fauna, geology, and geography each has to offer.

Mark Returns

Accidental Countryside cover

The challenge with life lately (say, over the past two years, give or take) is that it has been throwing me so many curve balls – or to use the British vernacular, bowling me so many googlies – that it’s been all I can do just to keep the Aspidistra flying. And one of the many ways I’ve let it fall over this time has been my neglect of proper correspondence with Mark Avery.

Field Guide to the Caterpillars of Great Britain and Ireland

FG Caterpillars Great Britan cover

As Nick Baker remarked regarding the new “Field Guide to the Caterpillars of Great Britain and Ireland,” “you can’t truly understand a moth or a butterfly without first getting to know the caterpillar.” As the overwhelmingly greatest portions of the lives of butterflies and moths are spent as caterpillars, he was – of course – absolutely correct.

Mastodon