Butterfly Walk

Michael (Mike) O’Brien is retired from the Medical Field in which he worked as a surgical pathologist for 35 years. After his retirement in 2005 in Pensacola, Florida, he relocated to Northeast Alabama near Fort Payne for its abundance of biodiversity. He and his wife, Marion, have spent the last 14 years actively converting their home’s 21 acre rural location to a Natural wildlife habitat, by adding many Native plantings, habitat modifications, bird houses, and doing so without the use of pesticides or other chemicals. They now have an abundance of butterflies, birds, bees, mammals and other wildlife with fifty-seven butterfly species in 2018 and at least 20 species of nesting birds. Mike is a lifelong amateur photographer and contributes his Nature photos monthly to several newsletters. He is also a Native flowers photo contributor to the new and forthcoming Wildflowers of Alabama book. Mike is a member of the North American Butterfly Association, and for the last 10 years has been an active, yearly participant in their local area butterfly counts for the National organization. He is also a member of Wild Ones Tennessee Valley Chapter, The Audubon Society, The Xerces Society, The Cornell Lab for Birds and is a yearly contributor to Mass Audubon’s National Firefly Watch. He is an avid handtool woodworker outside of his many Nature pursuits.