Community Spotlight: Look! Pocket-Sized Butterfly Identification

Have you been to Byrne Preserve lately? If you have, you may have noticed the many butterflies at the preserve. John Metcalfe, a recent graduate of our California Naturalist program, wanted to create a guide for identifying these important pollinators in a very localized and easy to use way. For his California Naturalist capstone, a project that participants design and implement at the culmination of their program, John put his new naturalist knowledge to work and created Look! A Pocket-Sized Butterfly Identification booklet:

We asked John a couple questions about Look!

What inspired you to create a butterfly guide for Byrne Preserve in particular?

“Firstly, butterfly books are not very local in scope – about the best you will get are books for most of Northern California and perhaps some Bay Area pamphlets. Look! was created to be a hyper-local identification guide aimed at children and interested adults so I tightly restricted the content to a narrow geographical area – Los Altos Hills.

Secondly, butterfly identification books use complex language not suitable for a young audience. I tried to keep Look! very simple. Five identification points, a picture and a few fun facts for each species. Finally, most guides won’t fit into your trouser pockets – even the pamphlets. Look! folds to business card size and fits into a small pocket."

How do you hope people will use the guide?

“I hope people use Look! to learn to identify even one or two local butterflies. It is said that if you teach a child to identify a single butterfly with confidence then they are on a path to become a nature steward in the future.”

You can find copies of Look! at Byrne Preserve or download below to always have your own copy on hand:

John is a longtime supporter of Grassroots Ecology and Byrne Preserve is his neighborhood open space. His favorite butterfly is the anise swallowtail.

By Kate Dolkas, Development Director