Butterflies through Binoculars: The EastA Field Guide to the Butterflies of Eastern North America

This is a remarkable achievement as a natural history of butterflies in the United States and is available for both Eastern and Western regions. It is very much a definitive work on the subject. But as an actual field guide to be used on nature walks, it suffers from all the problems most "Field Guides" do: It is simply too difficult for the average enthusiast to use effectively in the field while observing. It's big, heavy, and far too much information for a field guide. A fine desk reference for the avid lepidopterist, but not a beginner's field guide at all,

After planting a half acre pollenator plot, I began photographing and identifying butterflies. I was using an online site which is excellent and got this book on the recommendation of a good friend who identified butterflies if I had difficulty. It has good info on types of habitat and descriptions of how to identify different species. The photos are good too. I would have liked line drawings that show the identifying makings since it's not on the photos. If it had a drawing along with the written part to show for example the two spots on the little yellow. There are some lines on the photos, but only a few. I know I was able to identify the Brazilian Skipper by noting the spots on the wings in the places shown on a schematic. Again, the photos are good. The maps show the habitat and are easy to follow.

Can be used at home as a reference book, but I wanted it in my backpack. Good information, but hard to wade through.

I took an Advanced Class for a Master Naturalist program and learned butterflies through a retired Forest Service employee (PhD). This is the book he used when teaching at a major university near the Great Lakes. The book covers a geographical range from Florida to the Canadian border and is perfect if you live in the south, mid-Atlantic or northeast.If you are interested in learning butterflies and live in the eastern USA, this is the ONLY book you will ever need to purchase. The butterflies are presented in color photographs, both full and side views for each. The books plates also have the region of the eastern US the butterflies are found, their migration months and habitat. It includes a sizing chart and ways to identify butterflies based on anatomy which can help with the color photos.Don't waste your money on any other book as this one will do everything you expect.

Great pictures. Easy to follow information.

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.

This book has been around for a while. Has good pictures of wings above and below. I'm using it in conjuction with Butterflies of the Carolinas, which has better range maps and better indications of when a species is likely to be out.

This book has great color plates. Sadly many guides of this kind scrimp on black and white photo's. For a creature that is normally seen in bright sunlight color plates are so much better. There is a wealth of information and good range maps for each species that really are useful. I probably have accumulated over 100 fields guides through the years and this one is a dandy. Mr. GLASSBERG did an outstanding job.

Perfect