Customer Reviews

Butterflies through Binoculars: The East A Field Guide to the Butterflies of Eastern North America (Butterflies Through Binoculars Series)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

An absolute must have! Glassberg, who is president of the North American Butterfly Association, shares his knowledge of these delicate creatures and makes identifcation easy and fun. Includes 625 color photos (most by Glassberg) of free-flying butterflies. The first butterfly guide to use plates showing correct size relationships among species. Also features sections on binoculars, photography, biology, conservation, and gardening. You won't be sorry you purchased this fine book!

Without comparison, this is the best butterfly id book around. It is really easy to navigate and find specific butterflies quickly, even for the novice. It has maps as well as larval foods for the different butterflies. Quite complete. I keep it sitting right here on my desk so that when I see a butterfly flitter by I can run outside and id it. Its also has tips on identifying butterflies that may look similar which is helpful. I'd buy it again for sure!

Glassberg has the ability to share his passion about butterflies while providing excellent field marks to look for. This book sets the standard for future butterfly books but may be hard to top except by Glassberg himself. Even the description of butterfies contains thought-provoking or entertaining tidbits that make them a joy to read. Great photographs (except for one), information on habitat, flight period, host and foodplants, and range; just about everything you need to know. More importantly, Glassberg, who is president of North American Butterfly Association, employs the NABA checklist for common names. This is critical if you participate in a 4th of July Butterfly Count. If you have an older field guide, throw it out and buy this one. I have no plans on butterflying in the western US but I will be the first to buy such a book if Glassberg writes it.

If you've tried to identify butterflies and been frustrated, this is the book for you! If you like butterflies, gardening, or simply being outdoors, this too is the book for you! Spectacular photos of LIVE butterflies, brilliantly concise and educational text, excellent range maps, and seasonality charts make IDENTIFICATION easy. Users of this guide will learn quickly what many long-time butterfly watchers took years to learn. A fun tool for travel planning to butterfly hotspots too!

Without a doubt one of the finest insect guides in North America today. The pictures are exquisite, the text accurate, and the identification process easy. Because of its ease of use and accuracy, this book is required for two courses that I teach at the College of Staten Island: Field Biology and Experimental Methods in Behavior. My students are in full agreement with me that this is an essential guide for our courses.

Yes, this is a superior field guide, whether one is collecting or watching. And, the texts are also pithy and contain some great and timely information on the butterflies and especially conservations situations. The butterfly enthusiast crowd is lucky to have had such an upsurge in interest in its subject, and Glassberg is to be credited with kindling much of this. Speaking of Butterflies through Binoculars-- a wonderful narrative about same, through the binoculars of history, is the recent Nabokov's Blues by Kurt Johnson, another prominent lepidopterist. Its time to look at butterflies, appreciate them, and increase our knowledge as well. Get out with Glassberg's book and then go home and read some "sit-down" informative entomology. Enjoy.

Extensive photos of living butterflies shot in the field. Text and range maps opposite the photos, upper and lower views of males and females side-by-side with similar species. Photos also have arrows to each species diagnostic field marks.

I've been using this book for years to identify butterflies. It is organized by color which speeds the identification process, especially after only getting a quick look. There are also range maps and information on the times of year the butterfly should be seen. It is an excellent beginning field guide and works well, even if you're not a novice to butterfly ID.

I use this book for identifying butterflies at Ives Road Fen Preserve in Southeast Michigan. It gives key features of male and female, top and bottom wing surface, with photos of the butterflies in the wild. It shows the ranges and tells the caterpillar food plants. It is not just for children or beginners, as one reviewer said.

Obviously the result of exhaustive field research, this book is fantastic. The photos are great and make it easy to identify individual species. I appreciate the fact that living butterflies in their natural habitat were the "models" in most of the ID photos. Buyers should be aware that though this book is quite thick, the section containing color photos comprises only about 1/4 of its total pages.