Favorite field guide

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  • June 3, 2008 at 2:29 am
    Rachel White
    Participant

    Which nature field guides do ya’ll like best (ex: audubon,golden, etc…). I’m partial to Peterson’s, but am interested in hearing others opinions.

    Thanks,

    Rachel

    June 3, 2008 at 1:30 pm
    Karen Smith
    Moderator

    I like Audubon’s the best. They have actual photographs instead of artist drawings. They also have a good bit of information including range of habitat, identifying marks, description of habitat, and other information.

    However, I find it is a good idea to have field guides from other publishers. Sometimes it is helpful to see several pictures of what you are trying to identify. And sometimes another field guide may offer some tidbit of information that the others don’t.

    June 3, 2008 at 1:43 pm
    Bookworm
    Participant

    I also like Audubon’s best for general guides, but my absolute favorite are area-specific guides–ones for my state or area. It makes it much easier and faster for children to use (adults too!) Especially since I live in the upper Midwest, and guides are full of plants and animals that live only in Florida, or California, or the sea coast—-LOL!

    For birds, however, I try to get as many guides as possible, and I prefer ones that have good lists of field markings rather than pictures. A terrific picture of a bird sitting on a branch doesn’t do me much good if I’m trying to ID the bird I just saw fly through the trees with white tips on the spread ends of its tail! LOL

    November 1, 2008 at 12:39 pm
    Karen Smith
    Moderator

    I was browsing in a book store last night and found some newer field guides that look pretty good. Princeton Field Guide Caterpillars of Eastern North America is a thick field guide with good photos of caterpillars and the butterflies/moths they turn into.

    And the National Wildlife Federation has a series of field guides now too. The one on insects and spiders looked particularly good.

    The nice thing about both of these field guides is that the photos are on the same pages as the descriptions and other information. No flipping back and forth from the picture to the information as in Audubon’s field guides.

    November 4, 2008 at 3:53 am
    boysinthenest
    Member

    Hi I am like Bookworm, I bought two books that are for North America to take out to the yard and trails with us. I like having the actual guides because we read them outside and on the road during our vacations.

    But I wanted to mention that I use eNature as well. It is online based and you can find anything here for free. It’s great for looking up things that I might not completely be able to identify using the field guide. You can also type in your zip code to find a guide just specific to your area. You can even print it! It’s really awesome!!! Here is the link:

    http://www.enature.com/home/

    Sincerely,

    Kristal

    November 5, 2008 at 1:53 am
    love3Es
    Participant

    If you’re looking for field guides specific to your home area, you might also try checking with your state’s “department of natural resources” (or at least that’s what they call it where I live). I got several FREE, great field guides… owls, birds, insects, fish, etc. They even included CDs with bird and owl song recordings for id purposes.

    Just a thought!

    Kelly

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