Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9493 in Books
• Published on: 2003-06-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Customer Reviews

Great for Britain
In a short time, I've learnt to ID Britain's butterflies with only this book and a pair of close-focusing binoculars - it's all you need.

Lewington's illustrations (of all four life stages) are wonderful; that perfect marriage of science and art that makes such a field guide a thing of beauty as well as of use.

The supporting text, angled towards finding and identifying, provides a good amount of information for a guide of this size.

Other butterfly guides are burdened by European butterflies (440) that you wont see on this island; this book contains just the UK species (59) making it's SO much easier to ID stuff.

The one-page-per-butterfly format works perfectly and includes a distribution map and a chart showing when each of the stages is active.

I own quite a few field guides that I use for Britain, but in a house fire, this would be the one I'd grab on the way out.

A fantastic field guide
I have only recently decided to take my interest in butterflies further by trying to learn more about them, and to attempt to identify them on sight alone. Because of this, I quickly started looking for a handy guide to the butterflies of Britain, and finally decided upon this one. I am glad I chose this as my beginning in discovering and learning more about these beautiful creatures.

The guide is put together very well. Each butterfly has 2 pages devoted to it. Information included about each butterfly consisits of a small map of Great Britain to show where the butterfly can be found, colour illustrations of both the male and the female, as well as showing the colours and markings of the underside of the wings, as well as details of what stage they are in during which months of the year.
At the beginning of the guide, the structure of a butterfly is descibed and illustrated, along with information about the life cycle.
The author has also explained the butterfly families, as each butterfly is to be found within their family group.

For a small book, this has lots of valuable information. I am sure that I shall quickly pick up the skills to identify them and that I shall soon be on the way to knowing more about them - their eating and mating habits for example.
Although I chose this guide so as to introduce me slowly to butterflies by just concentrating on my own country, it has certainly helped to even further my interest and want to learn more about butterflies throughout the world.

Can't fault it at all
Speaking as a birdwatcher who started on insects one summer when all the birds were abroad, this book is excellent. The illustrations are clear for every stage of the lifecycle, the distribution maps are immensely useful and unlike the Collins, the number of butterflies isn't overwhelming. This guide concentrates on Great Britain and Ireland, and as a result it can afford to go into quite a bit of detail on each species while still being small enough to carry round as a field guide.

There are also a couple of useful sections on Rare Migrant/Extinct species, and the more common day-flying moths. The thing about insects is that there are millions of them and not many people watching, so there's always a chance you'll be the first to see something unexpected.

As a field guide generally, this is among the best I've ever owned. I've mentioned the illustrations, but there is a section at the start which explains the characteristics of the different families and gives you a bit of background. Very useful and very high quality. I have no fear that this will fall apart out in the field.

All in all, a very deserving 5/5. Would recommend to anyone as a book for both the field and the kitchen window sill.