I just received my copy of the new book "Butterflies of Maine and the
Canadian Provinces". About a month earlier than I thought!
I've only spent about an hour looking through it, but it appears to be a
great book. A fantastic addition to your library. It summarizes all of
the butterflies found in this region and is a compilation of an enormous
biological survey of butterflies in Maine and the Canadian maritime
provinces. A tremendous amount of data was put into the creation of
this book.
One of my biggest complaints about the big name field guides (Swift,
Kauffmann, etc.) is that they cover the entire US including all the
vagrants and strays to Texas, Arizona, and Alaska! What good is that
for us in New Hampshire!! This book is local! Although I'm still
hopeful that New Hampshire may do its own survey in the future, this
will have to do for now. Although the book discusses field marks, it
isn't really a field guide so much as a summary of the butterfly atlas.
Some of the great things as compared to Swift, Kauffmann.
* Local maps of Maine occurrences. Let's New Hampshire people know what
species to keep an eye out for along the Maine border such as Sleepy
Duskywing
* Local bar charts showing the seasonal occurrence of species. One each
for Maine and Canada. The Maine chart gives a very close estimate of
our flight times in New Hampshire.
* For each species, gives a short summary of subspecies, identification,
similar species, status in Maine, status in provinces, habitats,
biology, adult behavior, comments, and threats to their population.
Thanks to all of the authors for putting this together. You can get it
as follows:
https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501768941/butterflies-of-maine-and-the-canadian-maritime-provinces/#bookTabs=1
https://www.amazon.com/Butterflies-Maine-Canadian-Maritime-Provinces/dp/1501768948/
Steve Mirick
Bradford, MA