What lifts the heart more than unexpectedly encountering a beautiful piece of Nature’s artwork, a.k.a. a butterfly? The Smithsonian says approximately 17,500 species have been identified globally, and no one yet knows what glories still float about in deep rainforests.
We don’t have rainforests in the East Bay, but we do have at least 100 species of butterflies. That number increases to 144 if the whole Bay Area is included. Author/illustrator Liam O’Brien celebrates them in Butterflies of the Bay Area and (Slightly) Beyond, which Berkeley’s Heyday Books will release on Sept. 30.
O’Brien’s journey to becoming a butterfly expert was unexpected. A working professional actor, he tested positive for HIV in 1999. As his introduction recounts, he “drove to his apartment in Benicia and holed up with the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Butterflies for solace.
Earlier, he’d moved back to San Francisco from New York and was playing the role of Prior Walter in Angels in America at A.C.T. when a Western Tiger Swallowtail flew into his yard. Enthralled with its beauty, he sketched it and began keeping a butterfly-sighting journal, with hand-painted illustrations.
Becoming even more immersed, he participated in the Berkeley Butterfly Count, initiated by lepidopterist and UC Berkeley professor of entomology, the late Jerry Powell, Ph.D, to whom the book is now dedicated. With all the formal Latin names being tossed at him, O’Brien felt as though he’d “been thrown into the Wimbledon Center Court of butterfly counts.” But far from being deterred, he found it inspiring.
Years later, O’Brien has produced a comprehensive but nontraditional guide to local butterflies, one that combines accurate and detailed scientific information with anecdotes, many funny, and gorgeous paintings that took three years to complete. “I don’t have a degree in science,” he said in a phone interview, “but I was hanging out with grad students [and other experts],” and enjoyed learning Latin names and highly technical information.
Butterflies of the Bay Area covers the six categories of butterflies: Skippers; Swallowtails; Whites, Sulphurs, Marbles and Oranges; Brushfoots; Gossamer-Winged; and Metalmarks. The sections detail each insect along with its habitat, host plants, life phases and the best places to find it.
According to the book, “the Greater Bay Area has the highest density of butterfly counts anywhere in the nation.” The section “The Best Butterfly Walks in the Greater Bay Area” calls out the Mitchell Canyon Trail to Eagle Peak in Mt. Diablo State Park which features Gray Buckeyes, Variable Checkerspots, Lorquin’s Admirals and Echo Blues, among many others. Asked about other East Bay spots, O’Brien mentioned Volmer Peak in Tilden Park, Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline in Richmond, and both Tilden’s and UC Berkeley’s Botanical Gardens.
Butterflies, the reader discovers, like hilly areas with plenty of native trees and grasses.
Yet, O’Brien noted, the home gardener can beckon them. “Bigger butterflies like bigger flowers, smaller ones like smaller flowers, like cornflowers,” he said. One of the best plants to introduce is coastal buckwheat, which is the host plant for three separate species, he said.
As for the trend to plant milkweed to foster Monarch caterpillars, “Look for narrow-leafed milkweed, not Mexican milkweed,” he cautioned. The book contains an extended conversation with “Monarch whisperer” Mia Monroe.
Readers will also learn about migration, why O’Brien still carries a net—it’s not for collecting—why he thinks the adult butterfly stage should still be called “imago,” how an extinct species of Xerces may possibly be cloned, and many other fascinating facts that would definitely win Jeopardy’s Final Answer.
Asked what in particular he would like readers to take from the book, O’Brien referred to a citation in its introduction: “Peter Brastow, founder of Nature in the City in San Francisco said, ‘Learning the name of the thing in front of you is the first moment in conservation.’”
O’Brien will read from Butterflies of the Bay Area and sign books at Mrs. Dalloway’s Literary and Garden Arts bookstore at 2904 College Ave. in Berkeley at 7pm on Oct. 8. The store is taking pre-orders of the book online. Visit heydaybooks.com for other upcoming events.
