As a collector of nature books, field guides have long been among my favorite purchases (and reads). These compact texts—often light enough to slip unnoticed into a backpack or shoulder bag—hold photos, illustrations, maps, and data of encyclopedic proportion. You can dip in and out of them quickly locating information that might otherwise take a great deal of effort to acquire.
By flipping a few pages, you can uncover all kinds of animal secrets: where creatures spend their winters, what they like to eat, the shapes of their footprints, and more. Best of all, field guides and animal identification tools exist for a wider range of topics than ever before. Not only can you find conventional field guides for every imaginable group of animals—birds, amphibians, reptiles, invertebrates, fish, mammals—you can also find countless specialized field guides.
These specialized texts include guides to habitats—deserts, coastal regions, forests, wetlands; guides to activities—wildlife photography, hiking, eco-tourism; and guides to conservation—rare mammals, endangered species, threatened communities. The task becomes not to identify animals in the wild, but to identify the book to use to identify animals in the wild. This article will help you to understand the different types of field guides and to identify which is best for you, so you can concentrate on spending time outdoors and observing wildlife.
Conventional Field Guides
Conventional field guides are wonderful tools to help you accurately identify wildlife. Conventional field guides often contain animal identification flowcharts, in-depth species descriptions, maps, and population data. Each guide usually documents one group of animals, such as birds, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, fish, or invertebrates.
If you plan a field trip to observe a single group of animals, then you can select the corresponding field guide. Unfortunately, if you want to identify more than one group of animals, you must carry several field guides: one for mammals, one for birds, and so on. You might quickly turn into a walking library and find the load too heavy to carry. Luckily, you can consider selecting a specialized field guide instead.
Specialized Field Guides
- Habitat field guides - These guides are ideal if you are planning to explore an area and hope to identify the different kinds of wildlife you encounter. Habitat field guides are not as exhaustive as conventional field guides but the range of information contained within them is wider and better suited for the exploration of a habitat.
- Activity field guides - These guides focus on a central activity—hiking, nature photography, adventure travel—while also giving information about animals, wildlife, and habitats that you might encounter while participating in those activities. Activity field guides are great additions to your holiday reading. They provide colorful, educational information that otherwise might elude you as you enjoy your outdoor activities.
- Conservation field guides - These guides help you identify animals and wildlife in threatened or disturbed habitats. Additionally, these guides illustrate conservation ecology issues and often cite actions you can take to help protect wildlife.
Online Field Guides
The web has opened up a whole new-media world for field guides, enabling fast information access, high-quality graphics, and interactivity beyond those ever dreamed of in the old printed, leather bound field guide world. But as you will quickly find, the greatest drawback of an online field guide is that you need a computer to access it and even the lightest computer is more than I want to carry with me in the field. The value of online field guides lies in their educational value and community-building potential.
Field Guide Links
- eNature Online Field Guides (eNature)
- Peterson Online (Houghton Mifflin Books)
- International Field Guides (UIUC Library)
- Wild Birds Forever (Birds Forever)
- Fish Identification Cards (Fish Cards)
