Austin, Texas, is home to about 170 species of butterflies. It is also the home of the Austin Butterfly Forum, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to butterfly conservation and to enriching people's lives through butterflies. The Austin Butterfly Forum is a club that organizes field trips, conducts butterfly counts, promotes native gardening, performs conservation activities, and meets monthly for an educational presentation. We are a community of butterfly enthusiasts who also enjoy dragonflies & damselflies, bees, beetles, spiders and arthropods in general, and our meeting presentations span this gamut as well. Join Us!

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Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae), photo by V. Bugh

Meetings are held in the Zilker Garden Center, 2220 Barton Springs Rd., Austin, TX, 78746 at 7:00 PM on the fourth Monday of each month except December.

Aug. 25, 2014, 7 PM meeting: Digital Nature Journaling, presented by Valerie Bugh.

One of the most effective ways to learn more about the world around us is to keep a journal. By recording what we see, our observational skills improve, we gather more information, remember it better, and understand our place in the environment a little bit more. The traditional tools of the past (watching, listening, taking notes, drawing, telling stories) are still relevant today, but our kit has been expanded by computers, email, the internet and digital photography.

From the practice of watching nature to the sharing of information, this presentation will explore various aspects of studying our surroundings, with special emphasis on using a digital camera to record the minute details of what we discover.

Valerie Bugh is a local naturalist specializing in the arthropods of the Austin area, with interests in taxonomy and photography. She runs the Fauna Project at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, leads insect discovery walks, teaches entomology courses, provides insect/spider identifications, gives talks to local organizations, and has published a pocket guide to "The Butterflies of Central Texas." Website: Austin Bug Collection

Membership

All of our normal events are open to the public, but you may want to become a member of the Austin Butterfly Forum to help support us and our events. We also treat members to some extra goodies, such as reduced admission to special programs that have a fee and discounts on purchases made at meetings. Membership is $20 annually per household payable during meetings or by mail to Doris Hill, ABF Treasurer, 1605 Broadmoor, Austin, TX 78723.

For more information, please contact Mike Quinn, ABF president at 512-577-0250 or

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