This is one of the best Butterfly movies I have seen.  The incredible detail in the video is fantastic!  It is also very educational.  One of the main reasons I purchased this movie is because I had read where they do an MRI on a Monarch Chrysalis.  It was for that reason alone that I purchased it.

Where I have a major criticism of this movie is when it gets into evolution versus intelligent design.  I’m assuming most folks know about evolution, but maybe not so much on intelligent design.  Here’s a link to the Wikipedia definition so you can read about it yourself.  What I wish they would have done is just present the science and factual parts about the Butterfly and not become involved in the whole evolution versus intelligent design argument.  To me that detracts from the actual beauty and incredible photography of the video and of Butterflies in general. I didn’t buy the video to become convinced of evolution or intelligent design, I bought it to learn about Butterflies and I found it unfortunate that towards the end of the movie it tries to make an argument in one particular direction (I won’t spoil it for you).

So, I’d give this movie 4 out of 5 Butterfly wings for the cinematography and factual information.  It loses a Butterfly wing (or two) for introducing intelligent design version evolution.

Just to close this post, this was a Butterfly that had hatched a couple of days ago and was still sitting in the Fennel where we placed it the previous evening.  It is heavily cropped, but I thought it was kind of neat how the Butterfly was covered in early morning dew.

** Sorry I need to say a little more on this movie.  I feel like I was politically sucker-punched.  There was no reason to introduce these different agendas for folks who were simply hoping to come see an educational movie about butterflies.  Suggesting the butterfly wings are beautiful not for evolutionary reasons so it must be some intelligent entity design is attempting to enforce a political agenda. which I found quite unfortunate that they decided to go that route.

Monarch Butterfly Covered In Dew

I’ve also created links to many of the books and they will take you to Amazon’s site should you wish to order them or read the reviews.  Here’s a download to all the books in Excel format Butterfly, Birds, Insects, Photography, Pond, Reptiles and Gardening Books

Bird Books

1. National Geographic Field Guide to Birds: Texas
2. Birds of Texas
3. A Birder’s Guide to the Texas Coast
4. The Texas Ornithology Society Handbook of Texas Birds
5. Birds of Texas Field Guide
6. Birding Texas
7. Exploring the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail: Highlights of a Birding Mecca
8. Finding Birds on the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail: Houston, Galveston, and the Upper Texas Coast
9. Guide to the Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North American Birds
10. Peterson Field Guide: Eastern Birds’ Nests
11. A Field Guide to Western Birds’ Nests
12. The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America
13. The Stokes Purple Martin Book: The Complete Guide to Attracting and Housing Purple Martins
14. A Photographic Guide to North American Raptors
15. Hand-Feeding Backyard Birds
16. The Backyard Bird Feeder’s Bible: the A-To-Z Guide to Feeders, Seed Mixes, Projects, and Treats

Butterflies And Butterfly Caterpillars Books

1. Butterfly Gardening For The South
2. Caterpillars in the Field and Garden: a Field Guide to the Butterfly Caterpillars of North America (Field Guide)
3. The Life Cycles of Butterflies
4. The Butterfly Gardener’s Guide
5. Butterfly Photographer’s Handbook
6. Butterflies of North America
7. Gardening to Attract Birds and Butterflies
8. The Family Butterfly Book
9. Butterflies and Moths
10. National Wildlife Federation Attracting Birds, Butterflies & Backyard Wildlife
11. A Pocket Guide to Butterflies and Moths
12. Butterflies of Southeast Texas and the Upper Texas Coast
13. Milkweed, Monarchs and More: a Field Guide to the Invertebrate Community in the Milkweed Patch
14. The Butterfly Book
15. The Amazing Monarch
16. Butterflies of Houston & Southeast Texas
17. Finding Butterflies in Texas

Insect Books

1. Dragonflies and Damselflies of Texas and the South-Central United States
2. Stokes Beginner’s Guide to Dragonflies
3. Texas Bug Book
4. Insects of Texas
5. Garden Insects of North America
6. National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Insects and Spiders & Related Species of North America

Reptiles and Amphibian Books

1. National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Reptiles and Amphibians
2. Texas Snakes: A Field Guide
3. The Frogs and Toads of North America
4. Venomous Snakes of Texas
5. Lone Star Field Guide To Texas Snakes

Gardening Books

1. Wildflowers of Texas
2. Vegetables: American Gardening Series
3. Southern Living Garden Problem Solver
4. Complete Guide to Roses
5. Year Round Vegetables, Fruits, and Flowers From Metro Houston
6. The Complete Guide to Creative Landscapes
7. Howard Garrett’s Plants for Texas
8. Howard Garrett’s Texas Organic Gardening Book
9. Plants for Houston and the Gulf Coast
10. Texas Trees
11. The Organic Manual
12. The Truth About Garden Remedies
13. Gardening in the Coastal South
14. The Garden Lover’s Guide to Houston
15. Landscaping 1-2-3
16. Houston Garden Book
17. Gulf Coast Gardening With Randy Lemmon
18. Planning Your Garden
19. Bamboo for Gardens
20. Garden, Landscape, and Project Plans: 225 Do-It Yourself Designs
21. The Gardener’s Bug Book
22. Great Garden Sources for Texans
23. Plants for Places
24. Neil Sperry’s Complete Guide to Texas Gardening
25. Native Texas Plants

Pet Books (Including, Dogs, Cats, And Birds)

1. Dog First Aid
2. Dog Detectives
3. The Lost Pet Chronicles
4. Canine Body Language
5. Search and Rescue Dogs
6. Doin’ Texas With Your Pooch
7. Schutzhund: Theory and Training Methods
8. Give Your Dog a Bone
9. Grow Your Pups With Bones
10. The Barf Diet
11. Schutzhund Obedience
12. How to Speak Dog
13. Vaccine Guide for Dogs and Cats
14. Dog Owner’s Home Veterinary Handbook
15. Unleashed: Poems by Writers’ Dogs
16. K9 Explosive Detection
17. Dogwatching: Why Dogs Bark and Other Canine Mysteries Explained
18. Tracking From The Beginning
19. Scent, Training to Track, Search, and Rescue
20. Basic Narcotic Detection Dog Training
21. Training the Competitive Working Dog
22. The Man Who Talks to Dogs
23. Schutzhund Top Working Dogs
24. Top Working Dogs: A Training Manual: Tracking, Obedience, Protection
25. Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats
26. The German Shepherd Dog in Word and Picture
27. Herbal Remedies for Dogs and Cats
28. Herbs for Pets
29. Natural Dog Care
30. Parrot-Toys and Play Areas
31. Guide to a Well-Behaved Parrot
32. The Click That Does the Trick
33. Teaching Your Bird to Talk
34. The Parrot Problem Solver
35. A New Owner’s Guide to African Grey Parrots
36. The Alex Studies
37. The African Grey
38. The Ultimate Parrot
39. African Grey Parrots
40. Cat Wrangling Made Easy

Photography Books

1. How to Photograph Absolutely Everything
2. Photoshop Cs5 for Nature Photographers
3. Adobe Lightroom 3 – the Missing FAQ – Real Answers to Real Questions Asked By Lightroom Users
4. 2010 Photographer’s Market
5. Magic Lantern DVD Guides: Canon EOS 40D Multimedia Workshop
6. Digital SLR Cameras & Photography for Dummies
7. Digital SLR Pro Secrets
8. Mastering Digital Photography
9. Photographing Nature: a Photo Workshop From Brooks Institute’s Top Nature Photography Instructor (Voices That Matter)
10. Lightroom 2: Streamlining Your Digital Photography Process
11. The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book
12. The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Book
13. Photoshop Cs5 Restoration and Retouching for Digital Photographers Only
14. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2
15. EF Lens Work III
16. Macro Photography Photo Workshop
17. Photo Portfolio Success
18. The Adobe Photoshop Cs4 Book for Digital Photographers
19. The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers
20. The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter)
21. The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers
22. The Digital Photography Book
23. The Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photographers
24. The Photoshop Elements 6 Book for Digital Photographers
25. Layers: the Complete Guide to Photoshop’s Most Powerful Feature (2Nd Edition)
26. Canon EOS 7D Digital Field Guide
27. Beginner’s Guide to Photographic Lighting
28. The Hot Shoe Diaries
29. The Betterphoto Guide to Digital Nature Photography
30. The Betterphoto Guide to Digital Photography
31. Understanding Exposure
32. Learning to See Creatively
33. 2009 Photographer’s Market
34. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 for Digital Photographers Only
35. Photoshop Lightroom 2 for Dummies
36. Adobe Premiere Pro for Dummies
37. Selling Your Photography
38. Winning Digital Photo Contests

Pond Koi and Water Garden Books

1. Ponds & Fountains
2. Goldfish
3. Ortho’s All About Creating Japanese Gardens
4. Japanese Gardens in a Weekend
5. Plants for Water Gardens
6. The Pond Doctor: Planning & Maintaining a Healthy Water Garden
7. Water Gardening in Containers
8. Creating Water Gardens
9. Indoor Water Garden Design
10. Water Gardening
11. The Super Simple Guide to Koi
12. Ortho’s All About Building Waterfalls, Pools, and Streams
13. Japanese Gardening in Small Spaces

Fortunately, I think I may have found something that readers of this blog might find useful.  I found a pretty cool Book Cataloging application for the iPhone and iPad.  It’s called Book Crawler.  It allows you to use your iPhone or iPad to catalog all your books.  What I like about it is it allows you to use a bar code scanning application to scan the ISBN code, and then it automatically enters all the information.

What I plan on doing (and how this might be helpful if you read this blog) is that I will make the catalog available for download here on this blog.  Let me give you a couple of examples.  I’ve just cataloged a few books just in one area of my house.  So far I have 9 books on birding, 9 books on butterflies, 4 books on gardening, 6 books on insects (not including butterflies), 32 books on photography, 6 books on koi and backyard ponds, and 5 books on reptiles and amphibians.  I’m not even close to finishing scanning all the books that I have.

My goal, or should I saw project, it to finish scanning all of my books by tomorrow evening, and then I will upload the file here to the blog so that you can download it and do whatever you like with it.

Let me know what you think of the idea.

The name of the video is “On The Wings Of The Monarch.”  I happen to find it on Amazon as I was looking for new books and videos to purchase.

On Amazon’s site it says the DVD was made in 2004, yet on the actual DVD it says copyright 2001.  Perhaps the DVD came out in 2004, but a previous version (VHS perhaps) was produced in 2001.  Anyway, it’s no big deal.

Both Leecy and I enjoyed the video.  In fact, I’d say it’s the best Monarch Butterfly video we have seen.  You may recall that I also recommended the video titled “The Incredible Journey Of The Butterflies” produced by PBS.  Both videos are very good, but the video On The Wings of the Monarch appealed to us because it is more of a documentary that would interest the average person who wants to learn more about Monarch Butterflies and their migration.  It’s clearly not a high definition produced movie like the one from PBS, but it does make you feel like you are actually traveling to the overwintering sites in Mexico and California.  The video follows this “actress” (I didn’t much care for her “acting” skills personally) as she travels up the roads to the El Rosario Butterfly Sanctuary in Mexico as well as the one in Santa Barbara California.  I know how to describe it now.  This video feels more personal, whereas the PBS one feels more “produced” if that makes any sense.

The video also gives a brief tour of this place in Encinitas California called “The Monarch Program.”  I’ve never heard of this place before, and I don’t know anything about them, but it looks okay.  I just took a look at their website, and it doesn’t appear to be updated very frequently (2007 was the last entry I could find), but it still might be a neat place to visit someday.

Back to the video.  What I also liked about this video is it gave me some perspective on what it may actually look like at the El Rosario Sanctuary from a photography and video perspective.

So to sum up, the PBS video is great for a high definition video, whereas the On the Wings of the Monarch video feels more personal.  Both are educational for kids and adults.  I think both of them should be in your Butterfly video collection.

First things first.  I think we have 3 Monarchs in their “J” shape, which is the stage the move into right before turning into Chrysalises.  The other 4 are still eating, but it probably won’t be much longer until they also move on to the Chrysalis stage.

On the Indigo Bunting sightings, we have 2 consistent visitors (both male).  They are now feeding at our bird feeders and attempting to share space with all the other bird visitors.  I really want to get lots more pictures of them, but I need some better light.  Hopefully they will be around until the weekend at the very least.

I have 3 particular websites that I visit every day to every other day when it comes to Monarch Butterflies.

1. Journey North’s Monarch Butterfly Migration Tracking Project – I REALLY like this site.  They send out weekly updates if you subscribe to their email and it contains all kinds of information on Monarch Butterflies, what current States they are in, as well as other interesting trivia.  From reading this site, I find myself learning quite a bit each week.  In addition to tracking Monarchs, this site also tracks Hummingbirds, Songbirds, Whales, American Robins and Whooping Cranes.  They send out weekly emails on all these topics.
2. Monarch Watch.org – The reason I like this site is one these are the ones who started the whole Monarch Migration Tracking Process (this occurs in the Fall when Monarchs are heading back towards their breeding grounds in Mexico).  They also have information on Butterfly Gardening, Biology, Conservation, and Research areas.
3. Valerie Evanson’s Monarch Mania – I actually met Valerie though my blog,,,well I introduced myself on her blog.  Here’s what I think is good about Valerie’s site and why I use it as a resource.  First, Valerie is acting like a Citizen Scientist, whereas I spend my of my writing stories about what I see.  Valerie seems very meticulous about how she goes about raising Monarch Butterflies, the diseases and predators that Monarchs have to deal with, and scientifically post her actual data.  It’s also interesting for me personally because she lives up north and I am down south.  If you try and raise Monarchs like I do here in Houston versus where she lives, you’ll not be raising very healthy caterpillars.

So how about the birds?  Anything helpful in that arena for a backyard birder?

I’d say a definite YES.  I’ll start with links.

1. All About Birds From The Cornell Lab of Ornithology - If we want to learn anything about birds, this is the place to go.  Want to hear their sounds, the ranges they are found in, how to tell the difference between a male and a female, this is your place.
2. Greg Lavaty – I took a class from Greg and you will definitely benefit by getting to know him and viewing his pictures.  If you’re interested in just Texas Birds, look at his Texas Birds 2.0 section of his blog.  This guy seems like he’s out almost every day taking pictures of birds. He also is very good at identifying birds just by the sounds they make.  Trust me, that’s a helpful skill to have when you’re surrounded by a bunch of trees and wondering about those birds sounds you’ve been hearing.

Now for the next part.  Books and Applications.  I’ll cover the more difficult part first, applications.  By applications, I’m referring to iPhone applications, so if you don’t have an iPhone this probably won’t apply.

1. iBird Explorer South - it’s 10 bucks, but it’s been really worth it to me.  Not only does the application show you pictures of the birds (male and female) but it also contains the sounds that these birds make, their range patterns (you won’t find a Blue Bunting in Houston but you will find an Indigo Bunting).  It also gives you all the physical characteristics of the bird.  I actually sit out in my backyard trying to guess what birds I’m hearing.  I’ll play a few sounds and see if they match, or I’ll look at the colors of the birds and see if that particular bird every appears in my area.
2. Audubon Guides Birds Of Texas – This app is also very good.  Maybe not as many birds as iBird, but just about as good.
3. BirdsEye – Much smaller in concept than the above 2, but this app can help you locate rare birds in your area, and tell you where they were sited.

So there you go. Some helpful websites and applications for birds and butterflies.  If you decide to try them out, let me know what you think

There are two books that I think are really good for “finding” birds in Houston and the Gulf Coast.

1. Finding Birds On The Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail (Ted Lee Eubanks, Jr.) – This is a wonderful book that lists all the location to find different birds.  It also ranks each of the sites it references.
2. Exploring The Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail (Mel White) – Although not as detailed as the book above, I still think it is a very good book.

I also have three books that I would recommend for identifying Birds of Texas.

1. Birds of Texas Field Guide (Stan Tekiela) - This is a great little book that is small enough that you can carry it with you while you are out looking for birds.  It also has color photographs of all the birds.
2. Birds of Texas (Keith Arnold and Gregory Kennedy) – This book is also good.  It’s a little larger than the book above, but still an excellent reference.  It doesn’t have color photographs of the birds, but it does have color drawings.
3. National Geographic Field Guide To Birds – Nice color photographs.  I forgot I even had this book

That’s it, my bird book recommendations.  I don’t think you could go wrong with choosing any of these books.