Butterfly Bob

Robert Michael Pyle is an entomologyst-turned-creative-nonfiction writer. His books and essays are unique because his style is unique. He has been said to resemble Jerry Garcia, but when I see pictures of him I imagine a butterfly net in his hands rather than a guitar, or any other item so redolent of pop-culture.

His butterfly net is named Marsha. His old white honda is named Powdermilk. He bathes in streambeds sometimes and comments on his floating genitalia. He is, in short, a hippie in the real sense- outdoors, unconventional, quirky and not becuase it's how he's expected to be.

His writing reflects this. I have really enjoyed getting to know Dr. Pyle through reading what he has written. This is the most enjoyable aspect of reading his works- you get to know the writer, who is an interesting individual and a brilliant enough entymologist that he makes insects into something fascinating and terribly important with little effort.

He is founder of the Xerce's Society, an organization focused on the preservation of nearly-extinct invertebrates.

BOB

JERRY

Here is his biblio:

Published Books:

The Butterflies of Cascadia: A Field Guide to All the Species of Washington, Oregon, and Surrounding Territories.
2002. Seattle Audubon Society.

Nabokov’s Butterflies.Edited and annotated by Pyle and Brian Boyd, with new translations from the Russian by Dmitri Nabokov.
2000. Beacon Press.

Walking the High Ridge: Life As Field Trip. 2000. Milkweed Editions.

Chasing Monarchs: A Migration with the Butterflies of Passage. 1999. Houghton Mifflin.

The Thunder Tree: Lessons from An Urban Wildland. 1998. Lyons Press.

Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide. 1995. Houghton Mifflin.

Insects: A Peterson Field Guide Coloring Book. 1993. Houghton Mifflin.

Handbook for Butterfly Watchers. 1992. Houghton Mifflin.

Wintergreen: Listening to the Land's Heart. 1987. Houghton Mifflin.

Butterflies: A Peterson Field Guide Coloring Book. (With Sarah Anne Hughes and Roger Tory Peterson). 1983. Houghton Mifflin.

The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Butterflies. 1981. Knopf.

Chapters or other contributions in books:

Wild in the City (2000). Oregon Historical Society.
(Introduction, "No vacancy," and chapter, "Bright Butterflies, Big City.")

Nature's Fading Chorus: Classic and Contemporary Writings on Amphibians
(2000). Island Press. (Prologue, "Reflections in a Golden Eye,"
and chapter, "Waterproof Wildlife.")

Facing the Lion: Writers on Life and Craft (1996). Beacon Press.
(essay "Secrets of the Talking Leaf")

Words From the Land, Volume II (1995). University of Nevada Press.
(essay "A Grand Surprise")

The Norton Book of Nature Writing (1990). Ed. J. Elder, R. Finch. Norton.
(essay "And the Coyotes Will Lift A Leg")

Butterfly Gardening: Creating Summer Magic in Your Garden
(1990; new edition, 1998). Xerces Society/Sierra Club Books.
(Afterword and chapter "Butterfly Watching Tips")

The Art of the Butterfly (1990).
Chronicle/Marquand. (Afterword)

Works about Pyle:

Kuhlken, Robert. 2002. Robert Michael Pyle. In Roger Thompson and J. Scott Bryson, eds., Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume
275, Twentieth-Century American Nature Writers: Prose, pp. 261-270. Detroit: Gale.

Pearson, Michael. 1996. Robert Michael Pyle. In John Elder, ed., American Nature Writers, Volume2, pp. 733-39.
New York : Charles Scribner's Sons.

Slovic, Scott. 2000. Robert Michael Pyle: A Portrait. In Pyle, Walking the High Ridge: Life as a Field Trip, pp. 119-146. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions.

And here is a link to the Xerces Society's webpage:

http://www.xerces.org/