First up is the excellent Attracting Native Pollinators: The Xerces Society Guide to Conserving North American Bees and Butterflies and Their Habitat
. The Xerces Society, a well-respected invertebrate conservation organization, really went all out in this book. Chapters cover pollination, pollinators, and pollinator conservation, and every aspect of how to manage land, greenspaces, and gardens to provide nest sites, foraging habitat, and wintering sites for pollinators. Another section describes the bees of North America by family and subfamily. The photo illustrating the account of the genus Stelis (a cuckoo bee) was taken by Nannothemis in the Urban Dragon Hunter backyard. For a few years, we have photographed and tried to identify all the Hymenoptera and Diptera in the yard. We were happy to make this contribution to the Xerces Society, especially for such a terrific book. If you have even a passing interest in pollinators or landscaping for wildlife, get this book.
Next up we move on to another taxa with The Complete Book of North American Butterflies
. This is a beautiful book that, ironically, does not cover all the butterflies of the continent. The first 60 pages or so provide an overview the Lepidopteran life cycle. Most of the remainder of the volume gives summaries of the six families of butterflies in North America with brief, representative species accounts. There are over 700 species of butterflies in N.A. (there is a list in the back of the book), but fewer than 100 are described. Nonetheless, these accounts are succinct but thorough and each features one or two excellent photos. Nannothemis contributed a shot of a Little Wood Satyr that appears in both the "self-defense" section and on the back cover of the book. This book will be released next month, and would make a great introduction for a new butterfly enthusiast.
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