Chris Tenney and Jan Austin are butterfly people.

Their Pacific Grove home is colorful and carefully decorated. Austin, wearing a vibrant purple blouse and a woven lavender shawl, leans over a mesh enclosure on the countertop where 10 fat caterpillars feast on leaves and stems.

Within a week or so, the caterpillars will grow fat and slowly make their way to the top of the enclosure. They’ll hang in a J shape from the ceiling, tucking into a bright green cocoon that fades to reveal beautiful orange and black wings waiting to unfurl.

Austin has raised monarch butterflies for years. She rescued these ones from a neighbor’s garden.

It’s almost impossible to miss the butterflies in Pacific Grove. Their iconic silhouette graces street signs and storefronts downtown. Every fall, thousands of monarchs flock to the butterfly sanctuary near downtown in droves to mate. They cluster on tree branches like living flowers. But monarchs are not the only species circling the Monterey area skies. In Tenney and Austin’s new book, “A Field Guide to Monterey’s Butterflies,” they describe 91 species and where to find them.

Tenney, 78, and Austin, 64, met at a Monterey house party nearly a decade ago. Tenney had just returned to Pacific Grove after a “butterfly big year,” where he chased butterflies across the United States, spotting more than 500 species. When his wife, the mother of their two daughters, died from lung cancer, Tenney sold his home and set off in search of our nation’s rarest winged works of art.

Austin was happily single, but she agreed to meet Tenney upon recommendation from her good friend, Gina Puccinelli. Austin and Puccinelli had been friends since childhood, and Pucinelli knew about Austin’s penchant for monarchs. She learned about Tenney’s passion when he started taking her yoga classes. It didn’t take long for her to put two and two together.

“I was hopeful that maybe there would be a spark,” Puccinelli recalls. “Little did I know that they would become partners and co-create this book.”

It all started on the couch at that fateful get-together in Monterey. With Tenney and Austin on either side of her, Pucinelli turned to Austin and said, “Jan, remember that guy, Chris, I was telling you about?” Austin said yes. Looking at Chris, she said, “Remember that woman, Jan?” He confirmed. Considering her work done, Puccinelli got up, leaving them to get to know each other.

Tenney and Austin’s first few dates took them to destinations around Monterey County. Austin remembers going to Partington Canyon in Big Sur, where hundreds of little blue butterflies fluttered around them like confetti.

“It was like a magical little wonderland,” Austin said, closing her eyes and smiling softly. “I can still see it.”

Tenney is a scientist by nature. He grew up in Illinois with a butterfly net in hand. Facing pressure to pursue something besides insects, Tenney dabbled in medicine but ultimately settled on birds. He was volunteering in an ornithology lab in Monterey when he ran into the late butterfly expert Paul Opler on a hike. At the mention of Monterey, Opler’s eyes lit up. Apparently, it’s a goldmine for butterflies.

“That got me excited,” Tenney said. He eased his way out of birds and back into butterflies. “I love it. I’ve been chasing them all over the county for 20 years now. About halfway along that time, I met Jan.”

Tenney and Austin toyed with the idea of writing a book for four or five years before they drafted “Butterflies of Monterey County.” It combines their strengths. Austin, a writer and photographer, took point on the creative. Tenney’s data collection and field observations form the backbone.

The field guide is detailed, thorough, and fun. Each page describes a different local species with photos taken by Austin and Tenney and gives readers pointers on when and where to look for them.

Austin’s favorite butterfly is the California Dog Face, a beautiful specimen with a wing pattern that resembles a poodle’s profile. The fun facts page describes how butterflies taste with their feet and never close their eyes for lack of eyelids.

The book invites Monterey area residents to appreciate the richness of species often lumped into a single category, and it serves as an important record. As the climate changes and weather patterns morph and shift, the butterflies in Monterey County do, too.

“Some butterflies didn’t fly last year,” Tenney notes, describing how some experts theorize that heavy rainfall during spring months makes it difficult for them to survive the larval stage. “I’ll be following up on that this year,” he adds. Tenney makes field observations with painstaking care and hopes that this book will encourage others to join him on counting expeditions.

Austin has lived in the Monterey area since junior high school. Her father was in the military, and their family moved frequently during her youth. Sh

e remembers chasing butterflies around a backyard in Denver during a stint in Colorado as a child. When her father retired, they moved back to Salinas, where her mother was born and raised.

“I love this area,” Austin comments, “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

She’s watched hundreds of monarchs transform before her eyes, but it was Tenney who introduced her to the world of wild butterflies in her backyard. Still, the rescued caterpillars on the kitchen counter haven’t lost an ounce of charm in her eyes. Zipping the mesh hutch to let them eat in peace, she adds, “I’m doing my conservation one caterpillar at a time.”