Chapter 43: A good field guide is the perfect tool.
I remember my college arboriculture class book list. I was so excited for this class and so worried that I would have to purchase a book that would be out of my budget and too heavy to carry around campus. Instead, we were told to purchase the Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees: Eastern Region. I distinctly remember my professor saying it was no use wasting money to buy a book we’d never use again, when we could spend under $20 to buy a book we’d use constantly. I was so happy to finally have a professor who understood, not only life and college budgets, but the usefulness of a really good field guide. I have used this book so often, I’ve definitely gotten my money’s worth out of it!
Sometimes the simplest of books can impart the greatest knowledge. My Tree Finder : A Manual for Identification of Trees by Their Leaves by May Theigaard Watts has been another of my most favorite field guides. It points out, in small black and white drawings, different characteristics of trees. Even someone who doesn’t know an ash from an oak can identify a tree using this. We used to use it in college and we also used it with campers to identify the world around them. It is very small and affordable and makes identification much easier. It doesn’t need to be a lengthy book listing the growing habits of the plant or the exact migration pattern of the animal to be a good field guide. Usually just giving or finding the information is enough in the moment. Later, when you are out of the field, you can dive more deeply into researching what you identified in the outdoors.
There are many times when you would love to identify something, but no matter how many field guides you have with you or how knowledgeable you are, you won’t be able to do that in the moment. This is where it is essential to carry your field notebook and writing utensil. Sketching the organism you want to identify, as well as listing a few characteristics will help you to know what it is when you return to a place of research. The greatest field guides ever began with simple sketches of something. Someone taking the time to sit and observe and put those observations to paper led to the ability to identify and mass produce something to help us all out. Even if you have a field guide with you that accurately identifies the mystery, I encourage you and your participants to sketch it as well.
When our oldest daughter was little she would take books with her everywhere. On a trip to Leadville, Colorado, she just had to take her Golden Field Guide: Birds of North America. She was under two years old, but she “read” that book the whole trip to Leadville. She refused to go to bed that night without cuddling her bird book in the pack-and-play. We joked about her choice of book, but it served the purpose she needed- it helped pass the time and educated her simultaneously. A few months after that, she was on a Winter Bird count in Rocky Mountain National Park with her dad. He was carrying her on his back all bundled up against the freezing winds. When he turned around to get her out of the wind for a bit she saw a bird way up high and said, “bird!” Mr. M-DMM turned back around and spotted a rough-legged hawk which hadn’t been seen in the area for almost twenty years. Maybe when she “read” that book the whole weekend she was learning more than we thought!
When you are leading a group and someone asks what something is, allow them to take the time to figure it out on their own, even if you know. More often than not, the act of researching it will help it to stick in their brain. It also teaches them how to find the information on their own. Even if they don’t remember the exact name of the plant or animal, I bet they will remember where they saw it and what it looked like so they can identify it again. Using a field guide can also be a great game and time filler. Once, when several of our hiking groups were resting for lunch, we each pulled out different guide books and tried to identify the same object. It was a race to see who could find it first in their book and, most importantly, who could accurately identify it. Taking the time to allow someone to arrive at the answer on their own is the basis of experiential education.
Whether you are a seasoned naturalist or a budding beginner, take the time to choose a few good field guides to take with you. There will be more than one occasion where you won’t be able to identify something when you’re out in the wilds. Take the time to look through them and know how they work, choose the ones you prefer the most, and enjoy getting out and identifying what God has made for us. If nothing else, field guides are good reads that entertain as well as educate all in one book!
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