Customer Reviews

Dragonflies and Damselflies of the West (Princeton Field Guides)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Basics: 2009, 535 pages, softcover, 850+ color photos of all 348 species in western US and Canada, range maps

This is an exceptional book for any dragonfly enthusiast with a focus on identification. This is the most complete and best quality of any related book available.

As noted in the title, the "West" refers to all species found in (a) Alaska, (b) Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Nunavut and all provinces west, and (c) N/S Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and all other states west. This region encompasses 348 species, all of which are shown in this book.

All photographs are in color and of very good quality and size. All but 4 or 5 of the species are shown with at least 2 photos. Many species have 3 or 4 photographs. The photos show differences between male and female, adult and immature, and variations due to pruinose and heteromorphs. These photographs will be very helpful with the identification of most odonata you encounter - except for those frustratingly similar species. This is where the detailed text will be very informative and useful.

The text, ranging from ½ to a full page for each species, consists of 6 distinct sections. The bulk of the material is found in Description, Identification, and Natural History. A single, yet potent, sentence is given to each of the other three sections of Habitat, Flight Season, and Distribution.

The identification section does a good job of comparing similar species, giving pointers of how to differentiate between the finer points. The description of each can often be very detailed, which might be a bit too detailed for the novice or a person with a passing interest to know what to call that dragonfly flitting around the garden. To truly identify down to the species level, the book often describes the individual with terms of lateral thoracic stripes, postocular spots, abdomen black above S2-7, and other necessary "scientific" descriptors.

Expanding on this detail are wonderful drawings of the abdominal tips and appendages, which are sometimes the only means for identification.

The book has other brief sections on research, collecting, naming, anatomical labels (to help with terms in the identification section), and natural history.

Lastly, a distribution map is supplied for each individual. Where relevant, the maps zoom in to the restricted ranges for many of the species. The boundaries for the states and provinces are shown, which help with better detail.

This is, by far, the best odonate book available for the US. I certainly hope an eastern companion will follow in the near future.

I've listed several related books below...
1) Common Dragonflies of the Southwest by Biggs
2) Dragonflies and Damselflies (Odonata) of Texas, Volume I by Abbott
3) Dragonflies and Damselflies of Texas and the South-Central United States by Abbott
4) Dragonflies and Damselflies of California by Manolis
5) Dragonflies & Damselflies of the Border Southwest by Behrstock
6) Dragonflies of Alaska by Hudson
7) Dragonflies through Binoculars by Dunkle
8) Dragonflies And Damselflies of Georgia And the Southeast by Beaton
(written by Soleglad at Avian Review or Avian Books, May 2009)

This new field guide of dragonflies and damselflies of the Western U.S. and Canada, it undoubtedly one of the best of its kind in a fairly compact volume. Photos are large, sharp and clear with many represented that show diagnostic features so valuable for positive identification. This volume is destined to become a classic and "must have" for all odonata enthusiasts from the amateur to the professional. However, distribution maps are not current with some area records that have been common knowledge since late 2007. Still, This doesn't detract noticeably from the wealth of information and user-friendly format that comes wonderfully packaged in this indispensable tool! For these many superb reasons, I give it a solid 5 stars! Don't delay, order yours today! You won't regret this purchase and especially at this introductory price of just $19.77!!!!

If I was an entomologist specializing in Odonata, I would be full of praise for this volume. This book has great photographs and plenty of information. However, the book assumes a level of expertise that most amateurs and even professional scientists probably do not possess - that users are able identify Odonata down to the genus level before the book reveals it's usefulness. The lack of a key makes this volume more of a reference manual than a useful field guide. I would have to create a key before I can use this volume in the field.

The author spent a great deal of time and effort developing common names so that amateurs would be more comfortable with the Order - I find it odd that he did not include a method for interested non-experts to tease the genera apart.

There are serious amateurs who have a tremendous curiosity about dragons and damsels. There are those who need a quick reference book with photographs that make ID easier. And then there are those whose interest waxes and wanes with the dragon and damsel season (summer around here). At times, I'm all three, but primarily my interest peaks when the meadowhawks come back in droves or the darners, darters, and skimmers are present because of an abundance of water (as we had in this part of the San Francisco Bay Area in 2010).

Mind you, there are 7-9 months when the damsels and dragons are gone, so no matter how my interest peaks while they're present, I forget much of what I've read and knew the previous year. Kathy Biggs book is a handy pocket book that I can carry with me, but I've come to know just enough so that I can wait to get home and look up what I've photographed. Unlike some, I only carry field guides when I'll be gone away from home for a week or more. Then, after a day of shooting (photographically speaking) I need a field book.

Dennis Paulson's book is really a bit heavy for a field guide (though I've seen field guides that weigh up to 3 pounds!), but it's thorough and absolutely necessary if you're going to be in the Sierras or the deserts or in other areas where the dragons and damsels are not what you normally see at home. What you see at home you should be able to remember. But when you run into a pinkish-purple dragonfly that you've never seen before, THIS is the book. It's laid out beautifully, and when you track down the pink-purple dragonfly (a Roseate Skimmer which we do not have near my home), there is a great description of habits and ranges.

It is extremely well written, and the first 40 pages will draw you into the world of dragons and damsels (although it may not prepare you for your first meeting with a dragonfly fanatic!).

If I have one fault to find, it is a small one: the "West" as defined in the title could be a dot on a map of southwestern Arkansas or southeast North Dakota. Now, I'm fairly sure I'm never going to find myself in either state again, let alone where the dot is. On the other hand, I'd probably complain that it should have had part of Arkansas as the "West." Nah. The "West" to me will always be everything west of the Rockies where I spend 99% of my time. So, those of you east of the Rockies, take heart. This book covers it all ... even itty-bitty parts of the East!

Paulson's guide to dragonflies and damselflies (collectively known as odonates) of western North America is stunning to behold; one could spend a lot of time happily drifting through the beautiful photographs. Additionally, the text is incredibly informative. However, for a summary of this book's contents, I can not do better than the review by "Soleglad"-- I hope I got the reviewer's tag right -- of this book.

However, I"d like to emphasize that this book is not just for the "serious" amateur or professional. I am not a serious dragonfly person. I enjoy looking at them, love photographing them when the opportunity presents itself, but I don't spend much time identifying them "in the field," and I do not go to specific places to seek them out.

Nonetheless, I found this book fascinating. The introduction includes a myriad of interesting facts about these insects, and this helps you appreciate these beautiful animals all the more. The "field guide" portion of the book contains a large number of mostly superb photographs. The text in this portion of the book can be, initially, a bit hard to understand for us "lay-people," but if you wish to identify a dragonfly or damselfly, some technical description is necessary (and there is an excellent glossary with drawings to explain terms).

My Point: This is NOT a guide solely for "experts," but for anyone who wants to identify dragonflies/damselflies, in their yard or on vacation (in western North America). It is also visually pleasing and contains far more general natural history background than most field guides. There is no guide currently out that is anywhere close in quality.

My sole "negative" point is that it is nearly impossible for a photographic guide to put as many species per page as guide using drawings. This does sometimes make finding a collection of similar species (between which you are trying to make an identification) more difficult. But this guide is as good as a photo guide is going to get on this front as well.

Steven Mlodinow

Finally, a reference and field guide to expand on my knowledge of these facinating animals. The info on behavior is worth the whole price. As is stressed by the author, dragonflies (includes damsels) are extremely variable in species presentation. This guide appears to be as close as one can get to basic identification. I've already found answers to a number questions about our local representatives.

I can't take issue with the quality or usefulness of textual/factual content of this guide, but in my opinion, any nature field guide is no better than the quality of the illustrations; and in this respect (i.e., the photographic illustrations) I have rate this eBook as "disappointing". It's not that the included photos aren't good ones--they are generally good images (color, sharpness, etc.). It's just that (imho) they are presented at barely usable size (i.e., low image resolution) in the Kindle edition. Unless your needs are satisfied with images that tend to be the size of postage-stamps. Yes, if you attempt to "expand" or zoom the images on your iPad, they do re-appear in a new page, and I hoped these would offer viewing in more detail; but no, they still have the same low resolution. In a print (paper) edition the limited "real estate" available for color images might may be understandable, but one of the virtues of an eBook *ought* to be the relative ease with which the publisher/author can provide the reader with larger (higher resolution) images than in the paper version. An opportunity to enhance the book's usefulness was missed here; although perhaps this (missed opportunity) is typical for digital editions of illustrated books.

BTW, the sample pages of the Kindle edition (in Amazon's web site) that you can view on your computer screen are misleading in regard to the photo images; the same photos in the Kindle (iPad) version have distinctly less quality (less resolution and with obvious compression artifacts). Perhaps I would have been better satisfied with the book's image quailty had i bought the paperback version, but my advice about the Kindle edition is "avoid".

A further mark against the Kindle edition of this guide is the fact that there's no real index--just an alphabetical listing of the species names along with the (work-around) suggestion to use the "Search" function to locate relevant information in the text.

This new guide to "western" (west of a line from the southeast corner of Minnesota to western Louisiana) North American dragonflies and damselflies is incredibly complete with beautiful photographs, several detail drawings, range maps, and considerable text.

Well put togather, love the photo's then the info right after them, it really helps not have to look at photo section then look in the other section for the info.

Love looking at and doing photo's of nature and this helps to see what I took photo of