A Field Guide to Eastern Forests: North America (Peterson Field Guide) [Paperback]

John C. Kricher (Author, Photographer), Roger Tory Peterson (Editor), Gordon Morrison (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 1998 | Series: Peterson Field Guide

This field guide includes all the flora and fauna you're most likely to see in the forests of eastern North America. With 53 full-color plates and 80 color photos illustrating trees, birds, mammals, wildflowers, mushrooms, reptiles, amphibians, butterflies, moths, beetles, and other insects.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This latest edition to the "Peterson Field Guide" series seeks to train the reader to recognize patterns that define a woodland. Calling his book a "field guide to ecology," Kricher introduces basic ecological concepts and describes notable field marks that define a particular environment. Twenty-seven types of forest communities east of the Rockies are described in terms of their characteristic indicator species. Illustrative plates, many of which are in color, accompany these descriptions. Seasonal processes within the forest are also discussed. This book, when used in conjunction with appropriate field guides, is an excellent introduction for the amateur naturalist who wants to see the forest as a whole. Recommended. Laurie Bartolini, Lincoln Lib., Springfield, Ill.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Gordon Morrison is a well-known naturalist whose work has been praised by Roger Tory Peterson as "Marvelous, beautiful, excellent . . . Morrison's work is so inspiring that I wish such clear material was available when I was slowly learning ecology. . . . We owe a debt of gratitude to Gordon for his interpretive skills as an artist. He is a superb teacher who uses visual methods." Robert Bateman likened his work to that of Albrecht Durer and Andrew Wyeth. Gordon Morrison makes his home in Massachusetts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (October 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395928958
• ISBN-13: 978-0395928950
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 4.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #306,245 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am a Professor of Biology at Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts. A graduate of Temple (B.A.) and Rutgers Universities (Ph.D.), I teach courses in ecology, ornithology, and vertebrate evolution.

I have conducted Earthwatch-sponsored research on migrant birds on their wintering grounds in Belize and I am the author of over 100 papers and articles in scientific journals, magazines, and newspapers. My most recent book, The Balance of Nature: Ecology's Enduring Myth, was published by Princeton University Press in spring of 2009. I have also authored Galapagos: A Natural History, published in hard-cover by Smithsonian Institution Press in 2002 and in soft-cover by Princeton University Press in 2006. Other books include A Neotropical Companion, and three ecology field guides (Eastern Forests, Rocky Mountain and Southwestern Forests, California and Pacific Northwest Forests) in the Peterson series. I have also done two recorded lecture series, one on dinosaurs and one on ecology, published by Modern Scholar. I have even authored coloring books and first guides on various aspects of nature ranging from dinosaurs to seashores.

My current writing project is a comprehensive book on Tropical Ecology to be published by Princeton University Press in 2011.

I am a Fellow in the American Ornithologists Union and have served as president of the Association of Field Ornithologists and president of the Wilson Ornithological Society.

I have led numerous trips to many places including Cape May, Block Island, coastal New England, Arizona, the Pacific Northwest, Belize, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Peru, Ecuador, Galapagos Islands, Panama, and Trinidad. I have lectured for Linblad Tours of the Galapagos Islands, for Society Expeditions trips to Venezuela, Brazil, and Indonesia, and for Glacier Bay Cruise Lines in Alaska. My travels have also taken me to Tanzania, Antarctica, and numerous other places where wildlife abounds.

I spend a lot of time writing about where I have been and what I have learned in my travels. I have been an avid birder for just over a half century.

My wife Martha Vaughan and I divide our time between Pocasset, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod and Sunbury, Georgia.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Buy, Very Interesting, July 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Field Guide to Eastern Forests: North America (Peterson Field Guide) (Paperback)

This is a great field guide that covers many aspects of forests East of the Great Plains. Although it covers many common species of both animal and plant, it is not overly helpful for positively identifying individual species; and if one wants that, you are better off with a more specific field guide (i.e., Eastern Birds). It does, however, detail the workings of a forest and accompanies this fascinating text with 53 color plates, 80 color photos and many black and white drawings. In the first few chapters, it demonstrates the different forest types through indicator species; and it details the process of Old Field succesion, and the animals and plants that come and go as the process progresses. In the last chapters adaptation, and seasonal patterns are covered. I would highly reccommend this field guide for any one who would like to know how a forest works.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Introducing the Eastern Forest, April 28, 2004

By 

K Scheffler (Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Peterson Field Guides: A Field Guide to Ecology of Eastern Forests of North America (Paperback)

The purpose of this guide is not to assist one in identifying species of flora and fauna found in the Eastern Forest--such a tome would be monumental in size--but rather to instill in the reader an understanding of the forest's general dynamics. The book is divided into eight sections; they are:

1) How to use this book
2) Forest field marks
3) Eastern forest communities
4) Disturbance and pioneer plants
5) Adaptation
6) Paterns of spring
7) Nature in summer
8) Autumn and winter

This book is an excellent beginning point for those who want to develope a better understanding of forest ecology. I highly recommend it.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars How things really work, November 19, 2007

By 

Cecil Bothwell "Author of "Whale Falls: A... (Asheville, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Field Guide to Eastern Forests: North America (Peterson Field Guide) (Paperback)

Though this guide and its companion Western forest edition have been in print for over a decade, I only stumbled on it last year. It concisely provides the missing links between other field guides to plants, fungi, insects, spiders, reptiles, amphibians, birds, mammals, tracks, fossils ... you get the drift. As a hiker, bird-watcher or -feeder, observer, photographer or amateur naturalist, the first step is usually simple identification of species. (With summer warblers, of course, the first step is actually seeing the bird in question.) In the same way that traditional field guides provide portable I.D. info, the ECOLOGY version helps you understand the change you see as you hike down out of a Beech-Maple forest into an Oak-Hickory stand, or the subtle differences when a Northern Riverine Forest segues into a Northern Swamp. By no means comprehensive (remember this fits in your pocket), this book, like the science of ecology itself, is composed of seemingly endless delightful digressions. Where do galls come from? How do dragonflies mate? Have you ever bothered to learn frog calls? What can the vegetation in an old field tell you about history? This volume (and by my inference the Western companion) are an excellent and fascinating addition to any field guide collection.