"If, like me, you need baby steps, that's okay. O'Brien is clear that one doesn't have to leave the city to see many of the butterflies he describes in detail. A chapter titled "Tigers on Market Street" is dedicated to the Western Tiger Swallowtails of downtown San Francisco. As O'Brien also explains, the Upper Sunset is the city's best neighborhood for spotting a variety of beautiful butterflies without leaving the city."
""The virus has connected me to nature in a profound and surreal way," O'Brien writes. "The world of butterflies was handed to me by the fate of the disease. What a blessing. What a gift." In addition to his own extensive work, O'Brien consulted John Steiner's lifelong research on butterflies when writing the book, as well as a collection of every male and female butterfly species from Sonoma and Napa that was donated to him by fellow enthusiast Tom Wyndham."
A catalog documents 135 butterfly species across nine Bay Area counties plus Mendocino, San Benito, and Monterey. Many species can be observed within San Francisco, with Western Tiger Swallowtails frequenting downtown and the Upper Sunset offering rich butterfly-spotting opportunities. The catalog connects a personal experience of illness to a deeper engagement with butterflies and nature. Research contributions include John Steiner's lifelong butterfly studies and a comprehensive male-and-female specimen collection from Sonoma and Napa donated by an enthusiast. Detailed descriptions explain butterfly wing scales and behavior, and recount conservation efforts relocating Mission Blue butterflies to urban Twin Peaks.
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