#Field guides

[rebeccathenaturalist]

So. My partner and I have a holiday tradition where we go to at least one, sometimes multiple, bookstores and buy each other piles of books. It's a fun once-a-year splurge, and so we both usually end up with a great array of new and secondhand books to enjoy throughout the year. We ended up delaying things until Powell's had their Friends and Family sale, and hit up a couple of their locations along with a few other local bookstores. I got some pretty awesome stuff this year, but this has to be my best find:

It's exactly the kind of thing one would use to bait a trap for me (along with assorted cheese and warm, cozy wool socks). I collect field guides, and this one is delightfully niche. I almost put it back after reading the title because I've been trying to cut back a little on adding to my pretty, artistic vintage field guides in favor of up to date books for research. But then I looked inside:

Look at that. This isn't just discussing the general fur patterns and textures of mammal hairs. It's a bunch of microscopic photos of each type of hair of each species listed, showing unique cuticle textures that can be used to identify an animal based on a single hair. I mean, this is one of those areas of nature identification I knew existed but had just never really delved into myself.

Oh, and it's been out of print for ages and is basically impossible to find online. The chances of me finding this again were pretty slim. And for fourteen bucks less 30%? SOLD.

I really appreciate how several canids were included, like the gray wolf, coyote, coydog, German shepherd, and Labrador retriever (really cool to see how the textures of the two domesticated breeds differed!) I can also see where this would be really useful if you have some sort of pack-hunting canids going after livestock and you manage to find a bit of hair; I wonder how many wild species would be exonerated in cases where it's actually domestic or feral dogs causing trouble?

I'm also really intrigued by this note on the porcupine's page. Is it caution over issues identifying porcupine hairs, or did Moore et. al. write an entire study (or book) on reasons to exercise caution when collecting and examining a porcupine's hairs? (Probably best to save the examination for hairs that are not still attached to said porcupine.)

Anyway. This is a really cool addition to the field guide collection that's got me wanting to break out my microscope once I have the book manuscript done and have a little more time.

[jayfrost-designs]

Well, I wasn't gonna change this guy's design, but then I saw his new designin the upcoming graphic novel and fell absolutely in love with his little mustache, so I just had to include it. I ended up shifting his eyes down and out to the sides a bit as they look off, and I played around with the face markings forever before I was finally happy with them, but here's the end result and I adore it. He has this perpetually sad, slightly mournful look to him, which fits with his backstory, but he just lights up whenever he's around Ravenpaw. <3

Yeah, couldn't help myself. ^^ Rileypool's lineart turned out so good, and looked so much like how I picture his uncle Barley, that I just had to make a quick new ref sheet for Barley. So here's our beloved farm boy.

You can find the reverse side of his design here.

For his physical description, Barley is described as a a short, long-furred, sturdy tom with a plump belly, big paws, broad shoulders, and a broad face. As mentioned, I just reused Rileypool's lineart for him. He had a really rough life with BloodClan before going loner, and fought some few but intense battles after that, so I scarred him up a lot. On his reverse side, you can see the scars from his broken leg in Secrets of the Clans. ^^

For his pattern, Barley is described as a black-and-white tom with blue eyes. I always based his pattern off of his depiction in the graphic novels, as that's how I always pictured him, but I've always struggled with marking the black stripe connecting his head patch to his nose look realistic, so here I just ditched it instead, so this is basically his graphic novel design minus that stripe and with slightly tweaked patches shape-wise. I played around with his head patch a lot to get it looking how I wanted, and I'm fairly pleased with the end result.

Overall, I'm really happy with how this turned out.

[uwmspeccoll]

A Milwaukee Duck Feathursday

There are field guides and then there are field guides, and the famed Wisconsin conservationist and UW-Madison professor of Wildlife Management Aldo Leopold believes that this field guide is a step above: The Ducks, Geese and Swans of North America by Canadian engineer, businessman, and conservationist Francis H. Kortright (1887–1972), illustrated by the Canadian ornithologist and artist Terence Michael Shortt (1911-1986), and published in Washington, D.C. by the American Wildlife Institute in 1943.

In the introduction to the book, Leopold laments that "the existing literature on the identification of waterfowl describes manly their spring plumages. This is of little avail to the sportsman who is afield mainly in the fall, and it hardly suffices for the ornithologist, who is afield at all seasons." But in this guide, Leopold writes, "Mr. Kortright has sensed the need for a year-round waterfowl book and has done a scholarly job of writing one. . . . I do find much useful and interesting subject matter which most ornithologists omit. . . ." That Kortright has no formal training as a zoologist does not phase Leopold: "While he disclaims being an ornithologist, I detect no lack of ornithological competence in what he has written."

Of the illustrations, he writes, "Mr. Shortt's paintings, portraying all of the more important plumages of a given species, in themselves justify the publication of this volume." That both author and illustrator are Canadians also seems a plus: "To my mind it is appropriate that this book should issue from the pen of a Canadian. Canada is the birthplace of most waterfowl; this book attests her growing activity in waterfowl research and conservation."

We represent this field guide with images of some ducks most commonly found in our Milwaukee area: the Mallard, Wood Duck, and Blue-winged Teal are present in summer, with the Mallard and Wood Duck as year-round residents, while the Mergansers, Bufflehead, and Goldeneye are most prevalent in winter. We end with a couple of plates of random goslings and ducklings. Why? Well, because they're just so darn adorable!

View other posts related to Aldo Leopold.

View more Feathursday posts.

[demigirlvioletshine]

[artaintfartwarriors]

[starfragment1979]

Before I got sick, I was very much an outdoorsy person, which is one reason that becoming housebound had been so hard for me. A week or two ago I was in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil and a dragonfly happened to zip past the window, and I realized with a start, holy shit, I have not seen a dragonfly all summer. Because I'm just not outside. Which just fucking kills me, it really does.

But before I got sick, I spent years and years trying to learn about the plants and bugs and birds and everything around me. The city I live in is full of trails and parks and wilderness, and there's a lot of nature within walking or biking or public transit distance from anywhere in the city, and I was out in it as often as possible, and god I just miss the outside world so much.

Anyway, a lot of that knowledge is still in my head, and a lot of my learning was focused on urban nature, because as someone who's never gotten their driver's license, that was all that was available to me most of the time. But there's still a lot of nature in the city! Even without going off into the trails and parks. You just need to know where to look for it.

The problem is that a lot of wildflower field guides focus on the rare and showy and ornate flowers--because they make for pretty pictures and people buy books with pretty pictures. But that means that the growing-through-cracks-in-the-sidewalk weeds are often harder to identify, even though those are the kind of wildflower that people are more likely to see every day, because they're written off as too common to be worthy of notice or because they grow in abandoned lots or along the overgrown edges of alleyways or some other unseemly location.

So my point is, at some point in the past two decades I had misidentified this little flower as deptford pink (Dianthus armeria) and the ID just stuck in my head. But when I was writing out the alt text for my last post I realized that was wrong, but I couldn't figure out what it actually was. And it bothered me that I couldn't figure it out, that there's this super common weedy flower that I've been calling wild pinks for years and they're not wild pinks but wtf are they and am I really so out of touch with the outside world that I can't figure this out etc etc etc spiraling into gloom.

But this morning during my daily morning bed flop, I brought a bunch of my wildflower books up with me and did some better research, and I did have to make one wobbly trip down the stairs and back outside to go touch the stems to make sure they're sticky, but now I have successfully (I think) ID'ed it as dwarf sweet william catchfly (scientific name is either Silene armeria or Atocion armeria).

And like it feels so good that I was able to figure this out, that I can still learn new things even when I'm stuck at home or in bed so much of the time and that I can still make new plant friends.

[poolface]

[thebotanicalarcade]

n376_w1150 by Biodiversity Heritage Library Via Flickr: Pomologie française : Paris :Langlois et Leclercq,1846. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/59692499

[marmotclaw]

Elmstar (Elmleap)

Name meaning: Usually white or grey, hopeful, good stamina and strong leaper

White and silver spotted tabby genderfluid cat with strong haunches

[rebeccathenaturalist]

So. I am running into a problem with my book.

More specifically, I'm having issues with people understanding the scope of the book.

Because I have been working primarily in the Pacific Northwest teaching nature identification classes and so forth, that's the region most folks associate me with. I've been slowly increasing my work in the Midwest, but I only go out there a couple of times a year.

However, The Everyday Naturalist is not just a book about identifying things in the PNW. It discusses skills I've used for nature identification in my own travels, and there's nothing location-specific there. It's meant for anyone, anywhere, who wants to learn the actual process of figuring out what species they've found, even if they have no natural history background whatsoever. I've tried making it REALLY obvious whenever I talk about it in person or online, and even the subtitle is How to Identify Animals, Plants, and Fungi Wherever You Go.

But I still get some people assuming that it's just a field guide to Pacific Northwest life forms. Which is an issue 1) because I don't want non-PNW people thinking it's not for them, and 2) I don't want people who were expecting a book about PNW wildlife to be disappointed. As we're getting closer to the book actually being out (June of next year! Nine months!) and I'm about to start brainstorming with the marketing team at Ten Speed Press, I'm conscious of this misconception and want to keep heading it off at the pass as much as possible.

I am totally fine with continuing to answer the question "Oh, is it just for the Northwest?" because it's a great opportunity to have that conversation. But I'm at a loss for ideas as to how to be clear enough to avoid that question popping up in the first place beyond just elaborating on the book's content and purpose whenever I talk about it.

Which is all to say: I'm open to suggestions!

[archivist-dragonfly]

Book 087

Smithsonian Handbooks: Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life

Hazel Richardson

Dorling Kindersley 2003

A solid little guide book. Certainly enough for my needs. I had a copy of UC Press’ Dinosauria, but it was a bit too much information. This one seems about right for me.

[blorboclaw]

Rock in Cats of the Clans totally taking a dig at Shadowclan lol.

[demigirlvioletshine]

[briery]

[awkwardbotany]

Book Review: Wild Wasatch Front

If it isn’t clear by now from my Weeds of Boise series and countless other posts, I happen to be interested in the flora and fauna of urban areas. Urban ecology is a fascinating field of study, and I’m not sure that it gets the attention it deserves. Nature is not some far away place, and you shouldn’t have to leave city limits to go in search of it. Remarkably, nature exists right outside your…

[wizardhecker]

General question to reblog and tell me in the tags;

You go into a used bookstore - what are the two sections you head to first?