The Butterfly Season

Lea Korsgaard’s number one international bestseller tells the story of the year she spent tracking every species of butterfly in her native Denmark—suffused with beauty and wonder, The Butterfly Season is a love letter to the natural world, and an unforgettable reflection on the precious and fleeting nature of life itself. Combining nature writing, philosophy, myth, and science, The Butterfly Season is a luminous account of one woman’s quest to see all sixty-four species of butterflies native to Denmark in a single year. Part field diary, part mythological tapestry, part existential reflection, Korsgaard’s journey unfolds across seasons and geographies, through meadows, marshes, and ancient coastal lands, as she discovers the mysteries and miracles of the natural world. On the first day of the year, Lea Korsgaard sat at her desk, making a list. It was a typically cold, quiet January day, and the possibility of the new year—of new discoveries and new challenges—reawakened an old dream of Lea’s: to see every Danish butterfly species in one year. At first, the goal felt impossible—Lea knew almost nothing about butterflies, after all—but she persevered, creating a color-coded tracking system that mapped butterfly regions and flight times with meticulous care. As the project developed, what was at first a simple exercise in discovery became an intimate reckoning with transformation and rebirth, the butterfly’s fleeting existence knitting together beginnings, endings, and the life made in-between.