Choosing & Using Wildlife Field Guides by Stephen McCarthy

Choosing & Using Field Guides For more nature habitat information Visit these helpful websites: A Plant's Home A Bird's Home A Homesteader's Home

You’ve made the decision to learn more about nature, to move past the generalities of “pine trees" and “songbirds" and learn the specific names of various species, as well as something about their life cycle and their place in your habitat. How do you begin.

nless you are lucky enough to have a mentor who will take you into the woods and share years of accumulated knowledge with you, it is likely that you are going to turn to field guides for help. The number and variety of these guides on the market today is astounding. This wealth of information is certainly wonderful, but it can also be overwhelming. The trick is not in finding a guidebook, but in finding the right guidebook for your needs and your learning style. Finding a Field Guide Finding field guides is as easy as a trip to the local bookstore or library. If you travel, you will often find books geared specifically to each geographical area, and these can add a lot of interest to your trip. Nature centers are a good source of guides, wildlife magazines suggest many mailorder sources, and most large © WindStar Wildlife Institute

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A Plant's Home

cities now have at least one store devoted to nature and wildlife. Nurseries frequently offer field guides to plants, and your local County Extension Service or Government Printing Office are other sources of information, as are botanical gardens and special interest organizations, such as native plant societies. Don’t neglect the children’s area of the bookstore or library. Although guides designed for younger readers won’t go into as much detail, they are a great way to get the whole family involved and often have larger, clearer illustrations than adult books. Additionally, check out the categories marked “Nature Writing" or “Ecology." While not traditional field guides, these books often offer not only methods of identification, but also a sense of humanity’s relationship to nature. Here you can find such diverse topics as Native American uses for plants, wildflower folklore, conservation efforts on public lands, or ways to use your knowledge of nature to develop survival skills. If you have access to the Internet, whether at home or through computers at the library, you will discover a wealth of online field guides. These can be especially helpful when researching a subject such as dragonflies where there are many family members yet very

“...each plant is unique; each has its own stories, legends, and superstitions and its own uses for medicine, food, magic or beauty – in short, each has its own folklore. Learning this folklore is an excellent way to begin to truly know the plants – their nicknames and proper names, their virtues and uses, and their tales and legends." – Wildflower Folklore Laura Martin

little printed material available. Most sites will also suggest links to additional resources. In this electronic age, action and sound can become part of your guides when you choose videos, CD ROM’s, or cassettes.

Choosing a Field Guide Most guidebooks are illustrated, but some use photographs (generally in color) while others rely on drawings (sometimes in color). Both have their merits. Some people, especially beginning naturalists, find it easier to recognize a specimen from a photograph, and feel more comfortable with color pictures because they “look real." These do, however, have their limitations. The field specimen you are trying to identify won’t

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necessarily match the photo unless you are looking at it at the same time of year and at the same point in its life cycle. Drawings or paintings, on the other hand, generally include the flower, leaves, seed capsules, and other distinctive characteristics and are useful no matter what time of year you begin your search. Ideally, your personal library should eventually include both types of guidebooks. Those books which rely on photographs are often arranged according to dominant colors. For example, a wildflower guide might be broken down into

Tree Shapes Pyramidal Conical Columnar

Spreading Vase-shaped

Broad Rounded

–Audubon Society, Field Guide to North American Trees

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“yellow flowers," “red flowers," and so on. Once again, this is good for the naturalist who is relying on more obvious characteristics to make the identification, and can work well if used during the blooming season. Other guides are grouped by species which have similar characteristics, and still others by “families" which are arranged alphabetically by their Latin names. Generally the common names will also be listed in the index, but these can be unreliable since they often vary from region to region in the country. The Latin names, or “scientific nomenclature," may seem intimidating at first, but they become more familiar with use and can offer a surprising amount of information on their own about each species. Using Latin names will also make it easier to be sure that you are looking up exactly the same species in different books. Another consideration is the scope of the guide. You will find that some books cover the world, while others concentrate on North America, and still others narrow their view to a specific state or region.

that you just want to identify those species in your own area, then a regional guide will simplify your task by eliminating the butterflies which aren’t likely to be found in your backyard. Seasonal guides may also be of interest to you. Some books specialize, for instance, in field marks available in winter, such as tree bark or animal tracks, while others highlight autumn traits like leaf color, seed pods, and fruit. Habitat-based guides can be helpful too, concentrating on specific surroundings, such as wetlands or deserts.

Beginners will be more concerned about general appearance, while those who are more experienced will look for indepth material such as illustrations of alternate plumage (on younger birds, adults in different seasons, etc.).

When choosing a field guide, think about how you intend to use it. If you are interested in bird identification and will do most of your bird watching from your picture window, with the same birds repeatedly visiting your feeders, then you will be able to study them in a more leisurely manner, gradually absorbing the details of their appearance.

Obviously, the more information on each species that is included, the less portable the book will be. As a rule, the best time to identify wildlife is in the field, while you are looking at the specimen and can check details, so at least one of your guides should be pocket-sized.

On the other hand, if you’re walking in the woods there is a

As you think about how you’ll be using your guide, give each

Parts of a Bird

If you are fascinated by butterflies and love seeing the variety that nature has provided, then you might enjoy a guide that illustrates those insects from all over the world. If, however, you have decided

good chance that you will get only a fleeting glimpse of a bird in constant motion. In that case you need a guide which is small and portable but which clearly indicates specific identifying characteristics, plus offers good information on habitat and song.

– Stokes, Field Guide to Birds

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book a test. Choose a species that you already know, pretend that you have spotted it for the first time, and see how easy it is to “identify" with each book. Use the same example for all the books that you are considering. It is likely that you will find variations in how quickly you are able to eliminate the “wrong" species, the helpfulness of the illustrations, the amount of information about the species, and the general level of comfort that you feel while using the book. As a rule, the quickest identification takes place when all the information about each species – picture, range, and information – is located on a single page. Don’t be discouraged if it seems to take a long time to make an identification when you first begin. Practice is the best teacher, and soon you’ll find that you can more quickly narrow your choices. Using a Field Guide Before going out in the field, be sure that you are familiar with the appearance of plants to avoid, in particular poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac, and Stinging Nettle. Never eat any fruit or mushrooms unless you are certain beyond any possible doubt that what you are eating isn’t poisonous. Don’t rely on wildlife for clues as to safety. One of the favorite foods of many birds is Poison-ivy berries! Be sure to teach your children the same safely rules. © WindStar Wildlife Institute

Virtually all field guides, regardless of subject matter, will include for each example the size, color, habitat, range (where it is found), appearance at different times of the year, food or soil preferences, and some remarks about similarlooking species. Most will also have a section on “How to Use This Guide." It is worth taking the time to read these pages, because they will include the symbols and abbreviations used in the text, information on how the book is arranged, charts showing the labeled parts of the wildlife or plants upon which the book is based, often an illustration of the various species in silhouette, and a wealth of other material, including suggestions for additional reading. As you explore your environment, it will be very helpful to have both a good set of binoculars (at least 7x35, which means a magnification of 7 through a 35 mm lens), plus a Poison Ivy

– Golden Guide, Weeds

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hand lens (magnifying glass, 6X to 10X magnification). Birds are often too far away to see details clearly with the naked eye, and small wildflowers can often only be differentiated by very tiny characteristics. There are small binoculars on the market which will focus at closer distances, making them handy for studying butterflies and other insects, and magnifying lenses which fold up into cases so that they are easier to carry in a pocket. It is best to do your identification in the field but, if that isn’t possible, plant material can be saved in your book or a plant press and brought home for further study. Include as many parts of the plant as possible (stem or twig, leaf, blossom) and make notes about other characteristics (bark, soil, fruit). Never take plants which are endangered, and don’t take samples when there are only a few of them growing in a given area. In those instances, a photograph is a much better alternative. In addition, as you study your specimen, be careful where you put your feet and your equipment, taking care not to crush surrounding vegetation. When studying wildlife, keep a respectful distance away to be sure that your presence doesn’t scare the animal, and also that it doesn’t alert potential predators to a nest or other hiding place. The most

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important part of studying nature is learning to respect and care for it. Taking notes on what you identify will both enhance your enjoyment and increase your learning. You might want to jot things down in the margins of your book or keep a separate journal, but it is definitely worth establishing the habit of keeping records. Your notes should include the species, whether it is male or female (if appropriate), where you found it, the date, the surrounding habitat, and any unusual characteristics or behavior. Start to notice patterns. Looking back over your notes will give you a deeper appreciation for the cycles of nature as you realize, for example, that a hummingbird reappears at your feeder on the same date each year. Unlike humans, the rest of nature responds to an eternal, unchanging clock, and that can be very reassuring to those of us dependent on the sometimes whimsical and everchanging demands of work and family. Don’t stop with just keeping a written record of your discoveries. There are many ways to “collect" nature as you learn about it. Taking pictures is an obvious choice, and you might decide to create a series of specialty albums – mushrooms, animal tracks, seed pods, and so on. These

can be helpful when you try to remember what you have seen, and they can also be used to educate others. As you work with your field guides, you will start to learn what characteristics are most helpful when attempting to identify a species. For example, a beginner seeing a bird usually notices the color first, and perhaps the general size. The experienced bird watcher knows that identification is easier if one has taken note of smaller characteristics, such as eye rings, head patches, and beak shape. Similarly when studying flowers, the color of the blossom may catch your eye, but you’ll quickly learn to notice the number of petals and the type and placement of the leaves.

Leaf Arrangement& Types Alternate Opposite Whorled

Palmately Compound

Simple

Bipinnately compound

– Golden Field Guide, Trees of North America

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As you gain in knowledge, you will probably find that you want more than one field guide for each category that you’re studying. Take your time and build your library gradually, making notes on what you have found helpful in your current guide, and what you wish it offered in additional material. Which Guide To Buy When all is said and done, which field guide is the best. As you may have gathered, there is no definitive answer to that question. Your own experiences will ultimately determine the best books for your needs. In the meantime, the following series of guides come highly recommended by many nature lovers and would be a good place to start:

Even-pinnately compound

Oddpinnately compound

Nature identification relies as much on eliminating possibilities as it does on matching up characteristics. If you are trying to identify a tree with deeply lobed leaves, you might first eliminate all those without similar leaves, and then consider more detailed characteristics among the species that remain. Many plant guides are set up in this manner, asking you to make a series of choices which will gradually narrow your search to just a few possible matches.

• Stokes • National Geographic • Peterson • Audubon A Plant's Home

Most botanists and more advanced naturalists also recommend Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide for its nearly foolproof key system. While not a traditional field guide, Mary Blocksma’s book, Naming Nature, A Seasonal Guide for the Amateur Naturalist will be very inspiring. The author begins: “One day I was gazing out my window at a stretch of trees when I was suddenly struck with the realization that I couldn’t name any of them." This started her on a yearlong project to name just a few parts of the wildlife in her environment each week. Many of her experiences will resemble your own, and the results are very readable as well as informative. In the end, as Mary Blocksma writes and so many of us have felt, “...What brings me joy is more than knowing names. Many names, like last summer’s wildflowers, have already faded away. It was the process of naming that drew me like a magnet into a magnificence of green, pulled me into flowers, opened my ears to the cadences of birds. For the first time, I really feel like taking care of things." Gather your field guides and start today to learn and care for nature, and be sure to share your knowledge and inspiration with others.

RESOURCES Books s Butterflies Through Binoculars, Jeffrey Glassberg s

Mushrooms of North America, Orson K. Miller

Common Plants of the Mid-Atlantic Coast, Gene Silberhorn

North American Wildlife, Reader’s Digest

Owls, An Introduction for the Amateur Naturalist, Gorden Dee Alcorn

A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold

The Field Guide to Wildlife Habitats, Janine Benyus

Internet s For dragonflies: www.dragonflies.org/catalog.htm s

For butterflies: www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/distr/lepid/bflyusa/ bflyusa.htm

This article was written by Maryland Master Wildlife Habitat Naturalist Cathy Gilleland. For more information or for the name of a Master Wildlife Habitat Naturalist in your area, please contact: WindStar Wildlife Institute E-mail: wildlife@windstar.org http://www.windstar.org

WindStar Wildlife Institute is a national, non-profit, conservation organization whose mission is to help individuals and families establish or improve the wildlife habitat on their properties.

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