butterfly field guide for North America

[Steve Babbs]

Hi

Anyone got any thoughts on the best field guide for North America? I'm going to east Canada, but ideally I'd like one that covered all of the area, so I can retrospectively id some stuff from British Columbia and use it on future trips, which are likely to include California.

Is the Kaufman guide the only one that fits the bill?

Cheers

[Pete Eeles]

Hi Steve - I don't have a field guide, but can recommend "The Butterflies of Canada" (photos are of set specimens):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Butterflies ... 0802078818

Cheers,

- Pete

[Paul Wetton]

May be worth looking at Butterflies through binoculars. There are two books for east and west US. I think these are photographic guides. Plenty to find when searched for on google.

[nik_s]

Hi Steve,

Living in Eastern Canada for many years, I find The Butterflies of Canada by Layberry, Hall, and Lafontaine an excellent reference, but not exactly in a 'field guide' format - a bit large to carry in the field and using a traditional ('old fashioned') layout, with colour plates of set specimens at the end of the book. Very well written though. BTW all information from the book (including photos) is available for free at http://www.cbif.gc.ca/spp_pages/butterflies/index_e.php with gbif location data from a number of museum and private collections, including personal records of the authors of the book. The site looks unimpressive at first, but I've used the gbif database to search for locations and find it spectacular; too bad there is no such tool yet for all European countries.

As far as field guides go, I use Kaufman's (Kaufman field guide to the butterflies of North America by JP Brock and K Kaufman), which has many flaws but is passable for id purposes and covers all of North America (I like looking at pictures of species I've never seen ). I must add that I never carry books with me in the field - I prefer to do my reading at home, so my opinion may be biased.

There are separate references for many regions as well - Quebec, the Ottawa region, etc.

Cheers,

Nikolay

[Steve Babbs]

Cheers guys.

I think I'll go for the Kaufman guides as it covers the whole country.