Field guides; A love affair with nature and books

Nature, art and photography are my favorite subjects. The place these elements come together best is in The Field Guide.

I love field guides

If I could, I’d maintain a collection of field guides to everything natural; birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, butterflies, dragonflies, wildflowers, trees, mushrooms, fishes, beach-, surf- and sea-creatures, rocks and minerals. . . you get the idea.

The genre has stayed much the same over the years, which I find deeply comforting, yet there have also been enough changes and improvements in production and art quality, to keep things exciting. It’s interesting to compare ranges, status and comments over the years, as well as stay abreast of nomenclature changes; it’s also a good excuse to refresh my memory lest I forget a Latin name (horrors!)

I collected books as a little child and I still crave them; I feel rich as can be going home with a fresh new volume of some sort, coddled safely in a bag, hugged close to my chest, as I stop by a sandwich shop to eat, sip, read and savor.

I just browsed my home library, tracking down favorite new and old ‘friends’.

Maybe my most cherished is the iconic 1975 classic, A Peterson Field Guide Series, Houghton Mifflin’s A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of Eastern and Central North America, 2nd Edition, by Roger Conant, illustrated by Isabelle Hunt-Conant. This compact hardcover is dog eared and tattered from obsessive use when I was a teen, stalking the fields, woods and streams in search of herps (herpetofauna). You see, I was an amateur herpetologist and collector. I was forever turning over logs and rocks, kicking though tall grass pastures or seining streams in the search for bright, rare, bejeweled and endlessly fascinating reptiles and amphibians. I remember the first and only huge, cartoonish, freakish and altogether glorious Spotted Salamander I found near a pond in upstate New York.

I’d give a lot to see one of those in the wild again.

Conant’s book was always where I would turn to identify the wonderful living treasures I’d found. The text and maps were up to date and scholarly and the images were perplexingly accurate compared to other references. This was because of a fascinating technique, novel at the time, of taking black and white photos of the live animals, then hand-painting them with painstaking accuracy. To this day it is a real classic and a very useful book.

For years I’ve dragged around a time-worn copy of the Golden Press/Western Publishing Company, 1966 A Guide to Field Identification Birds of North America by Chandler S. Robbins, Bertel Brunn and Herbert S. Zim, with quaint illustrations by Arthur Singer.

I have a strange relationship with this book. I use it more than I like it. It’s utilitarian, simple, cluttered, edgy. It’s a small, compact, unpretty handbook built for the field with a tough, weatherproof cover. The right-hand pages are jammed/cluttered with portraits, silhouettes, field marks, wing bars, in-flight portraits from below, from the side, flock formations, flight postures, typical habitat ‘scapes, comparisons to similar species . . .heads, feet, chicks, color/breeding/age and sex color phases and more -- and often all on the same page! Facing pages (left hand) include range maps, text and sonagrams. Entirely too busy, too much information and . . . a trusted, invaluable reference. While I find it offends my sensibilities, I have relied on it to steer me through my early birding years, and, I admit, it did a splendid job.

Much ore to my aesthetic taste, as well as wonderfully informative and accurate, is the stunning new soft-cover 2-book set Birds of Eastern North America, and Birds of Western North America, Photographic Guides, with images by Paul Sterry and Brian Small, by Princeton University Press. Brilliantly clear and bright photos seem to jump off the pages, showing identifying markings and different plumage stages, with juvenile, adult, male, female, and morphs clearly labeled. Right hand pages are laid out in a clean, inviting format which packs a lot of images while maintaining a sleek, stylish look that is a pleasure to study. Left hand pages have text, range maps and additional, smaller descriptive photos. A tad bulky to lug into the field (and too beautiful to risk in rain or if crossing streams on foot), this is the book that I curl up with after I get back from my nature walk, to luxuriate in the strikingly beautiful photography and entertaining, informative text.

Not all my favorite books are ‘lovely’. I had a wonderfully quirky and endearing hardcover called Birds of South Vietnam, (which is confusingly listed on Google under Philip Wildash/Ernst Mayr/ Published in 1968, Charles E. Tuttle Co (Rutland, Vermont, Tokyo.)) . The paintings are clumsy and charming, and the text, as I remember it, passionate. I wish I still had my copy.

Then there is the vintage Indian Hill Birds by Salim Ali. 1949 Oxford University Press. Lovely little volume with beautiful color plates, plus black and white photos; a collectible treasure.

The Observer’s Book of Dogs, edited by S.M. Simpson by Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd London, 1970, is a true pocket field guide. An ongoing series, says the dust jacket flap, since 1937. Very small, compact hardcover with text and black and white photos (one per breed) of each breed recognized by the American and English Kennel Clubs, as well as dogs considered rare at the time. I poured over this little book for hours on end as a youngster selecting my own dog.

Another odd collectible is the slender little hard cover Garden Birds, A King Penguin Book, by Phyllis Barclay – Smith, 1945, 1946, 1952, with plates made from paintings of John Gould’s Birds of Great Britain. As a teen, I loved imagining what it must be like to live and observe wildlife ‘across the Pond’.

Next, is Lloyd’s Natural History, A Handbook to the Game Birds, 1896, Volumes 1 & 2 by W.R. Ogilvie-Grant, Zoological Department, British Museum, published by Edward Lloyd Ltd., London. They are true antiques now, and rather fragile. In fact I noticed as I checked the publisher and dates just now that the frontispiece is coming unglued. There are color plates throughout. Rare and worthy but, for some reason, I think I keep these out of duty rather than love. I'm not sure they were ever 'field guides' in the true sense of the word, as much as handsome additions to a sportsman's study.

The last is also not quite a field guide, per se, but a tiny treatise on collecting and keeping small native fishes; A Net Full of Natives - Some North American Fishes by Tom Baugh; RCM Publications (Freshwater and Marine Aquarium Magazine) 1980 R.C. Modeler Corp. Now out of print, it is a slender soft cover illustrated with color photos. I love the idea of keeping and appreciating the decorative small native fishes we have here in North America. This modest volume actually has very nice little photos and text that any aquarist will enjoy. One day I will set up a mud-minnow tank!

There are hundreds of other Field Guides out there. What are YOUR favorites?

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