The Amherst Garden Club is excited to kick off the 2025-2026 year with naturalist Brian Cassie who will be speaking on the topic of butterfly gardens. Brian is the founder of the Massachusetts Butterfly Club and he helped create Mass Audubon’s Butterfly Atlas in 1986.

Cassie is the author or co-author of twenty books on nature including: A World of Butterflies, Say It Again, and numerous National Audubon Field Guides on topics ranging from Trees, Amphibians, and Shells. He has also written a number of articles for the publication Bird Observer. 

Brian Cassie has been studying butterflies in Massachusetts for more than four decades; these observations have now been included in a landmark study recently published in the journal Science. The research finds butterflies are declining rapidly across the contiguous United States, including New England.