Field Guides

Field guides are special books.  Lots of them fit in your pocket and can be used out in the field to identify  particular plants or animals.  Field guides come in several formats, and address aspects of nature using differing methods.  Let’s take a look at a selection of these and how we might use them.

Traditional field guides contain a list of all the species within a class such as mammals, birds, or insects.  If the class is very large, a guide may only contain species from one or more orders.  There are  thousands of species of insects, but this class can be broken down into many manageable  orders such as bees, dragonflies, beetles, and more.  Guides provide information on names, field marks, range maps, habitat, food, reproduction, predation and impacts from/to humans.  The arrangement of information within a field guide can be based on one or more identifying characteristics such as color, field marks, taxonomy, habitat, or a unique feature, i.e. number of petals.  Many guides use a dichotomous key, an identification method that asks a series of questions and offers two choices for each answer, eventually leading to a single organism.

Several traditional field guides are issued as parts of series intended to cover a wide variety of life in specific geographic areas.   General guides include Peterson’s Field Guides series; The Audubon Society series, and North Woods Naturalist series.  Pocket-size field guides are limited to only a select group of species within a class or order, usually the most common ones that are likely to be found.  Some that may be of interest include Birds of Illinois by Stan Tekiela; Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America, and the Golden Nature Guides.  Other series take several books to cover only one class of animal.  Examples of these guides include The Sibley Guides, Stokes Field Guides, and The Crossley Guides, all of which include multiple volumes about birds.

Nontraditional field guides teach us about nature by using a descriptive element applied to a group of species.  Consider some of the following:

• Guides by habitat – Peterson’s Eastern Forests; The Book of Field and Roadside by John Eastman; Discover Nature in Water & Wetlands by Elizabeth P. Lawlor
• Guides by characteristic – Peterson’s Eastern Birds’ Nests; Pollinators of Native Plants by Heather Holm; Tracks & Signs of Insects and Other Invertebrates by Charley Eiseman and Noah Charney
• Guides by geographic region – INHS Field Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians of Illinois; North Woods Naturalis Series; Trees of Illinois by Linda Kershaw; Flora of the Chicago Region by Gerould Wilhelm and Laura Rericha

The latest technology in field guides is to have information and search capabilities using an app on your phone or tablet that you can carry with you.  Three of my favorites include Seek by iNaturalist for plant and animal identification; Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab of Ornithology for bird identification; and SkyView by Terminal Eleven for stargazing at night.  All of these let you use the camera on your device to take a picture to identify the object or view.  Follow-up questions are included to help refine your ID and provide you with additional information.

For those of you who like to keep it simple, consider making your own field guide.  Start with a nature coloring book or a blank sketchpad.  Do your own drawings, colorings, and field notes.  This type of field guide accumulates extensive information over the years and becomes a treasured source for descriptions and notes on your own personal interaction with nature.  Any way you choose to learn, get out and have fun today!