Without a Net: Adventures with Butterflies and Moths is a digital book by Ilse Gebhard, published by Kalamazoo Area Wild Ones.
Edited by Beth Bradburn, with a cover by Amelia Hansen, the book is available as a PDF for $10. All proceeds support the work of KAWO.
For decades Ilse Gebhard’s columns in local newspapers and nonprofit publications have informed and inspired southwest Michigan conservationists. Kalamazoo Area Wild Ones has collected over eighty of these short essays in Without a Net: Adventures with Butterflies and Moths, an illustrated natural history of Michigan lepidoptera. Available as a PDF, the book features hundreds of photos that elegantly teach us how to see and understand the butterflies and moths we live with.
Woven around these images are scientifically grounded yet witty and engaging stories of the author’s “adventures.” Without a Net will send you out to your garden and beyond in a spirit of curiosity, stewardship, and respect.
About the author
Ilse Gebhard was born in Berlin, Germany. At age eleven she immigrated with her family to Caracas, Venezuela, where she lived until going to college in the US. After receiving BS and MS degrees in Chemistry she worked for thirty years as a Medicinal Research Chemist. In retirement she pursued her interest in the natural world, with special emphasis on monarch butterfly conservation. She has volunteered extensively for the Audubon Society of Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo Area Wild Ones, and the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy, and served as a Monarch Watch Conservation Specialist, and as a monitor and trainer for the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project. She lives with her husband in a retirement community in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where she started and edits a nature newsletter for residents.
(Photo by Russ Schipper)
