As Nick Baker remarked regarding the new “Field Guide to the Caterpillars of Great Britain and Ireland,” “you can’t truly understand a moth or a butterfly without first getting to know the caterpillar.” As the overwhelmingly greatest portions of the lives of butterflies and moths are spent as caterpillars, he was – of course – absolutely correct.
Of all the many books that I perused at BirdFair, one that particularly caught and held my attention – perhaps as a result of my affinity to Lepidopterans – was the Field Guide to the Micro-moths of Great Britain & Ireland by Phil Sterling and Mark Parsons with illustrations by Richard Lewington. Published in 2012 by British Wildlife Publishing and distributed by Bloomsbury UK, this handy field guide describes and depicts 1,033 species.