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Overview
With a love for adventure as great as his lifelong fascination with butterflies, America’s best-known lepidopterist set himself an irresistible challenge: how many of the 800 species of butterflies known in the United States could he track down in a single year? Packing little more than a butterfly net and favorite binoculars in his well-travelled 1982 Honda, Robert M. Pyle embarked on the first Butterfly Big Year—a 365-day, 88,000-mile sprint to every corner of America. Mariposa Road is part road-trip tale, part travelogue, and part memoir of people and species Pyle encountered along the way. Most of all, the book is an unprecedented, intimate view of the entrancing world of butterflies, with new attention to their habitats in a time of environmental stress and climate change. From the California coastline in company with overwintering monarchs to the far northern tundra in pursuit of mysterious sulphurs and arctics, from the zebras of the Everglades to the leafwings and bluewings of the lower Rio Grande, Pyle completed an extraordinary journey, ruled always by surprise and discovery. With exuberance, humor, and honesty, he shares his adventures—and his amazing list of species, both identified and experienced.
Editorials
Kenn Kaufman
“Toss out any notion you might have had about butterfly watchers and meet Bob Pyle: scientist and daredevil, philosopher and magician, pioneer and rebel, and the finest of companions for a vagabond journey. Follow him down the rip-roaring Mariposa Road and you’ll never look at a butterfly, or the world, in the same way again.”—Kenn Kaufman, author of Kingbird HighwayMichael M. Collins
“Lepidopterists will appreciate Bob’s sightings, chases, and captures, and natural history remarks on species both familiar and unknown. A reader with only a general interest in natural history can vicariously join Bob on his “rays,” enjoying the adventures, learn much about regional biotas, and either elect to look up specific butterflies in a field guide or choose not to. There is much for anyone among a wide readership to consume and ponder.”—Michael M. Collins, author of Moth CatcherFrancie Chew
“Mariposa Road is at one and the same time both a serious endeavor in consciousness-raising in conservation biology, and a set of deeply personal reflections based on a lifetime of commitment to the conservation of invertebrates and butterflies in particular.”—Francie Chew, Tufts UniversityMolly Gloss
“In Mariposa Road we’re invited along as Bob Pyle crisscrosses the country on a yearlong hunt for butterflies. He writes of the land and the creatures in it with such extraordinary vividness and grace—describes his adventures and unexpected challenges with such good humor—that we are borne aloft, we can see it all and love it, as he does. You’ll never have so much fun armchair traveling!”—Molly Gloss, author of The Hearts of HorsesScott Weidensaul
“What Roger Tory Peterson was for birds, Bob Pyle is for butterflies—their most impassioned advocate and ceaseless popularizer. From the dusty heat of Texas and the tropical lushness of Hawaii to the legendary outhouse of the Midnight Sun in the Alaskan Arctic, Pyle is a traveling companion who never grows dull.”—Scott Weidensaul, author of Of a Feather and Return to Wild AmericaThomas Lovejoy
“A charming book, emanating from the traveling naturalist tradition of Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher’s Wild America, and Edwin Way Teale’s four volumes on seasonal change of nature in America”—Thomas E. Lovejoy, University Professor of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University and Biodiversity Chair, The Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, Washington, D.C.Martin Warren
"Mariposa Road is a mighty slice of North America, seen through the eyes of one of its most eloquent naturalists. During this Butterfly Big Year, Bob Pyle introduces us to the wonder of 478 species and with each encounter we get a unique insight into the places and people that make up modern America. For those of us in Britain, with a mere 57 species to tick, it is a real treat. This is extreme butterflying at its best, I wish I could have been with him."—Martin Warren, Chief Executive, Butterfly Conservation, Wareham, Dorset, U.K.Seattle Times
“Armchair travelers who love a good yarn will find Pyle’s exuberance catching.”—Seattle TimesOrion
“Robert Michael Pyle’s expansive knowledge of the natural history of North America shines through.”—OrionWall Street Journal online
“For the seemingly ever-growing number of Americans who are just beginning to watch, photograph, and keep life-lists of butterflies, this book will be a revelation of how deep this passion can run.”—Wall Street Journal onlineKirkus Reviews
Ecologist Pyle (Sky Time in Gray's River: Living for Keeps in a Forgotten Place, 2007, etc.) goes in search of as many butterfly species as he can find north of the Mexican border during 2008.
The author took the notion of a "Big Year" from birding—to find, experience and identify as many of the creatures as one could in a single year. He is a low-tech guy, using just his old binoculars, butterfly nets, jalopy and good old-fashioned sense of adventure and wonder. An enthusiastic guide, Pyle chronicles 14 journeys from his house in southwest Washington. He stops frequently to smell the coffee and check out the roadside fennel for anise swallowtails, and he follows hunches, intuition and happenstance, all thoroughly primed by his deep schooling in butterflies. But the author is tuned into more than just his metalmarks, duskywings and checkerspots. After all, there's plenty more in the natural world to observe and remark upon, including countless other species of flora and fauna, strange foods and local ales, run-ins with the Border Patrol, odd encounters, stormy weather and bites of regional history. He travels on a shoestring, meanders freely and maintains an unjaded pleasure in simple pleasures, like a goatweed emperor flying alongside his car somewhere in Arkansas, and helpful friends along the way. Though he finds his share of habitat destruction and larvae being killed off by mosquito fogging in the wake of the West Nile virus, he encounters a healthy number and variety of butterflies.
The narrative is not just a sweet, unhurried travelogue; it can easily be used as a guidebook, as Pyle is scrupulous in detailing where and when he found each of the butterflies.