galls, leaf mines and other tracks and signs of insects (win a field guide!)

READERS REGULARLY EMAIL ME with photos of things they can’t explain, asking for ID’s of balloon-like structures on leaves and twigs; leaves chewed up in a particularly interesting pattern, or with squiggly white lines etched on them. I always go to one book to try to help: the award-winning “Tracks & Sign of Insects and Other Invertebrates: a Guide to North American Species,” whose lead author, Charley Eiseman, was the guest on my latest public-radio show. Learn about galls, leaf miners and more—and maybe win this indispensible field guide.

Charley Eiseman and Noah Charney’s 2010 book is full of photos of all the oddball things you see outside (if you stop long enough to notice!): egg cases and cocoons and all kinds of webs; folded and curled-up leaves as if something’s hidden inside (it is!); and all manner of bumps, lumps, notches, and holes in foliage, bark, you name it. Even tiny previously unexplained pattern in the sand…and soil…a.k.a. tracks and signs of insects.

“I’ve always been interested in everything around me,” says Charley, whose Master’s degree is from the University of Vermont’s field naturalist program. “Then someone gave me a digital camera right after I graduated from college, so I started paying closer attention to the little things. And then I started wishing I had a field guide to tell me what all these signs left by insects and other invertebrates were—but it just didn’t seem to exist.”

Charley and Noah took it upon themselves to create that guide, in “Tracks and Sign of Insects and Other Invertebrates: a Guide to North American Species” (Amazon affiliate link).

“I spent a winter going through every book on insects and spiders looking for anything relevant,” says Charley (who blogs here), “and I was

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