Field Guides and Reference Books

Many time teachers and students ask me how I know what I know. The answer is from many years of listening and learning from others, and reading. There are many guide books available and more published every year. I'm sure I'm not the only naturalist that has to watch his wallet when visiting a bookstore. These are my favorites and ones that I find most useful (although any book on nature is definitely useful).

Martin, Alexander C., Herbert S. Zim and Arnold L. Nelson. American Wildlife and Plants: A Guide to Wildlife Food Habits. New York: Dover Publication, Inc. 1961.
This is a reprint of a book published in 1951. I am not sure if it is still in print, but it is well worth borrowing from a library or buying used. The first part of the book lists many of the common animals and what they eat, while the second part of the book lists common plants and which animals eat them.

Palmer, E. Laurence revised by H. Seymour Fowler. A Fieldbook of Natural History. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. 1949. ISBN 0-07-048425-2.
Another “golden oldy” that is out of print. It is an encyclopedia of natural history giving a short account, usually 5 or 6 paragraphs about a wide range of natural science topics starting with the stars and ending with animals. It covers the atmosphere and weather, rocks and minerals, plants (it is outdated in areas of taxonomy; for example in lists fungi in the plant kingdom), and animals, providing basic information on each.

Ehrlich, Paul R., David S. Dobkin, and Darryl Wheye. The Birder’s Handbook: A Field Guide to the Natural History of North American Birds. New York: Fireside/Simon and Schuster, Inc. 1988. ISBN 0-671-62133-5.
Another great bird resource. The left side pages present information on bird species (organized as most bird books are by taxonomic order, the most primitive birds - loons, first, and the most advanced birds - finches, at the end. The right side pages are various essays on ornithological topics. It’s called a field guide, but it could be considered an encyclopedia.

Pasquier, Roger F. Watching Birds. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1977 ISBN 0-395-25343-8.
I think this is one of the easiest books to read to learn about the biology and ecology of birds. Unfortunately I believe it is out of print.

Sibley, David A. The Sibley Guide to Birds. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2000.
ISBN 0-679-45122-6
Sibley, David A. The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2001.
Two of the most recently published bird books provide a huge amount of information on North American birds.

Budliger, Robert E. and Gregory Kennedy. Birds of New York State. Auburn, WA: Lone Pine Publishing International. 2005. ISBN-13: 978-1-55105-326-4. Author Bob Budliger is a long time friend, colleague and birdwatcher of mine. We enjoyed many Christmas bird counts and few World Series of Birding days together. I have seen several other books in this series, including Birds of New England and Birds of Pennsylvania. This book is nice in that it covers only birds expected to be seen in the state.

Glassberg, Jeffrey. Butterflies through Binoculars: the East. New York: Oxford University Press. 1999. ISBN 0-19-510668-7.
Dunkle, Sidney W. Dragonflies through Binoculars: a Field Guide to Dragonflies of North America. New York: Oxford University Press. 2000. ISBN 0-19-5112687-7
Both of these recent books encourage the use of binoculars to get a close up look at two very popular insect orders, the lepidoptera (the butterfly half of the order) and the odonata.

Wagner, David L. Caterpillars of Eastern North America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2005. ISBN 0-691-12144-3. Any exploration outdoors will uncover a caterpillar or two. This book is the only one that I know of that covers over 600 of the moth and butterfly caterpillars found in eastern North America. One of the greatest features of the book is a foodplant index which is a most useful aid in identifying a caterpillar.


McGavin, George C. The Pocket Guide to Insects of the Northern Hemisphere. London, England: Parkgate Books Ltd. 1998. ISBN 1-85585-362-0.
I think this is one of the best beginner books on insects. I don’t know if it is still in print. I bought mine at discount table at Barnes & Nobles (or was it Borders?). I wish I had bought all of the copies they had. It has very nice illustrations and good detailed information on about 200 insect families, just right for the beginning entomologist.

Newcomb, Lawrence. Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1977.
One of the two classic wildflower field guides. I think naturalists are pretty well divided in half as to which guide the prefer, Newcomb’s or Peterson’s. Newcomb’s uses a code system that incorporates observations of plant parts that leads to sections of the book where the final identification is done by matching the diagram.

Peterson, Roger T. and Margaret McKenny. A Field Guide to Wildflowers of Northeastern and Northcentral North America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1968. ISBN 0-395-183251
The Peterson guide uses a visual approach that involves observations of color, form and other details. This does help lead to a better understanding of plant families (scientists use the word family for very closely related groups).

Peterson Guides: the most popular of all the field guides, probably the inspiration for most field guides and worth a short story about Roger Tory Peterson and what led him to write about and illustrate birds. The story goea, as a child in western New York he walked a long distance to school. As it was, he was often late in arriving. After many late arrivals, one of his teachers (I believe it was third grade) asked him why. He explained that on his way to school he would stop and study the many birds he encountered and before he knew it he’d be late. This teacher didn’t punish him. Instead, she said if he was going to be late that often he would have to write a report on the birds he observed. Those early bird observations, writings and drawings set Mr. Peterson on a path that would change how almost everyone looks at the natural world.

My favorite Peterson Guides:

Murie, Olaus J. A Field Guide to Animal Tracks. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1974. ISBN 0-395-19978-6.
Covell, Charles V. Eastern Moths. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1984. ISBN 0-395-361001
As far as I know Houghton Mifflin has not recently printed this book, although I don't think they say it is out of print. At a family nature convention many years ago I was introduced to night-lighting for moths and other nocturnal, light-attracted insects. I had to get the guide to Eastern Moths. I searched in what seemed to be almost every book store from Albany to Boston for it. I even searched for it on used book store sites like ABE.com with no luck. I finally walked into a small paperback book store in Gloucester, MA. They had two copies. I should have bought them both.

Harrison, Hal H. A Field Guide to Birds’ Nests. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1975. ISBN 0-395-20434-8.

Houghton Mifflin also publishes other books and materials under the Peterson name. These are the Peterson First Guides and Peterson Flash Guides. The First Guides are intended for younger or beginning naturalists. They are described as being a simplified guide. My favorite is:

Wright, Amy B. Peterson First Guide: Caterpillars. Boston: Moughton Mifflin Company. 1993. ISBN 0-395-56499-9
There aren’t many books on caterpillars. This is a great help for identifying and learning about a very easily found creature.

The Flash Guides are plastic laminated fold-out posters. The two I use often are the Flash Guide to Hawks and the Flash Guide to Animal Tracks.

Golden Guides: another very popular series of guides in two formats published by Golden Press of New York. There are the pocket sized books called Golden Guides. The series include several dozen titles. My favorite is:

Reid, George K., Herbert Zim and George Fichter. Pond Life. New York: Golden Press. 1967.

Then there are the Golden Field Guides. These books are the standard field guide size. Probably the most popular is

Robbins, Chandler S., Bertel Bruun and Herbert S. Zim. Birds of North America. New York: Golden Press. 1983. ISBN0-307-33656-5.
This book features range maps on the same page as the bird species account, a criticism of the Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Birds. I knew an ornithologist that took his Golden Field Guide to Birds of North America and drew in all of the field mark notes found in the drawings in the Peterson guide (one of the strengths of that guide).

Another popular series is the Stokes Nature Guides published by Little Brown. My favorites:

Tyning, Thomas F. A Guide to Amphibians and Reptiles. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1990. ISBN 0-316-81713-9.

Stokes, Donald W. A Guide to Nature in Winter. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1976. ISBN 0-316-81720-1.
This is the best book on nature in winter. It almost reads like a novel and is full of information.

Stokes, Donald W. A Guide to Observing Insect Lives. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1983. ISBN 0-316-81727-9.

Lastly, another series of nature guides, called the Finder published by the Nature Study Guild in Rochester, NY. These are pocket sized and very inexpensive. My favorites are:

Miller, Dorcas. Track Finder: A Guide to Mammal Tracks of Eastern North America. Rochester: Nature Study Guild. 1981.

Watts, May Theilgaard and Tom Watts. Winter Tree Finder: A Manual for Identifying Deciduous Trees in Winter. Rochester: Nature Study Guild. 1970.

Watts, May Theilgaard. Tree Finder: A Manual for the Identification of Trees by Their Leaves. Rochester: Nature Study Guild. 1991.

Watts, May Theilgaard. Flower Finder: A Guide to Identification of Spring Wild Flowers and Flower Families. Rochester: Nature Study Guild. 1955.

If you have any questions or would like more information please make use of the comments on this blog.