Customer Reviews

National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Rocky Mountain States

5 star:		(7)
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3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As with all of the National Audubon Society's field guides, the "National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Rocky Mountain States" is a most worthwhile purchase, perfect as a gift or for your own collection. The guide is durable and very portable, which makes it well suited for use in the outdoors. More importantly, it has excellent content. Despite its small size, the field guide contains a wealth of information. In addition to the usual focus on flora and fauna species, there is information on constellations, parks, ecosystems, and more. While the depth and detail of the information in the various sections is not vast, the breadth of subject matter more than makes up for this; the information presented is ideal for a general field guide. Moreover, the book is beautiful, filled with gorgeous color photographs. Residents of the Rocky Mountain states and non-residents will both love it.

First, the positive: this is a very complete and very pretty-looking guidebook. It does cover just about everything from the night sky to lichens and rocks. I can imagine an eastern tourist leafing through, anticipating all the wonderful things they'll see on their trip through Rocky Mountain National or Glacier park.

However, in the field, the guide is next to useless, as there are no keys, no list of the details and differences that make, for example, one tree a Ponderosa and another a Lodgepole pine. The only way to disern what exactly you are look through the book randomly until you happen upon a photo (generally too small to supply necessary detail) that looks kinda similar to whatever it is you are trying to identify.

This book is best at capturing the endless possibilities of our Rocky Mountains, a compendium of all the wonderful things you may run across. It won't however help you actually find them.

This is not the most thorough of all field guides imaginable but it is easily the best that I can imagine that you could take with you in the field. It really is pocket-sized! It will fit in the shirt pocket of my long-sleeved flannel shirts, though it's too heavy (450pp.) to be entirely comfortable there. It fits better in roomy pants pockets, jacket pockets, or the side pocket of a day pack.

The book has everything, including some geology and habitat information as well as mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, birds and plants. It's exhaustive for the mammals that I've seen in the Rockies and nearly exhaustive for birds. It has good, small pictures of everything with information about ranges and seasons. There is plenty of information, clearly organized, to help you identify things that you see.

If you're going on vacation to someplace in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, or Colorado then this is a logical purchase if you desire to understand your surroundings. It has everything from constellations to fungus to birds to mammals to insects to wildflowers and more. With such a small book covering such vast ground, however, it can be expected to have some issues.
My biggest bone to pick is their exclusion of female bird pictures from the bird section with the exception of a select few species. The section would be great if the only birds in nature were males, but I can't tell you the number of female birds that I could not identify because their pictures weren't included in the book.
The lack of maps showing different species' range was a bit bothersome as well. While they do list in text the places where species can be found in the region, it would be much more clear and simple to see this represented on a map. It would also allow you to see where else in the US these species can be found rather that simply where in the Rockies they may be found.
Some of the pictures are a bit small to be useful for identification, specifically the wildflowers, and I also found a few species of fungus in the field which I was unable to identify with the book. This was not because of the picture but because they seemingly weren't included in the book. One particularly frustrating example was the fact that the most common lichen I saw the whole trip, a shaggy bright green number that grew literally on EVERYTHING, was not in the book. This really blew my mind. It's possible that it is only that color in the spring and turns gray for the rest of the year in which case I may have an idea what it is, but if this is the case then there should be a note about this very fact.
All complaints aside, I was able to identify a LOT of wildlife with this book and it's hard to imagine finding more info in one book. The only alternative would have been purchasing specific books on each type of wildlife which would have been impractical and costly. I probably would recommend this book although there are a number of improvements that the Audobon Society could make.

This is the best regional field guide series available and is compact and all-encompassing. Some of the specifics are out of date but it is still extremely useful.

This is a nice little guide for identifying and understanding a selection of common flora and fauna of the Rocky Mountain States. Great for carrying in your rucksack on a day hike when your goal is simply to wander about and explore.

Rather than using it to identify specific plants and animals, I have found that the best way to use this book is to find things listed in the book and then explore likely places where that item might be found.

If you are serious about identifying birds or wildflowers, this is not really the book you need, but if you just want to get a general idea of the types of plants and animals you might see during a hike, this is great for the purpose.

Considering it's small size, a great book for the price.

We have several of these - one for the Mid-Atlantic, one for California, and so when we were planning a trip to the Rockies region, we didn't hesitate to go ahead and purchase this one. These are great field guides. Not as comprehensive as specific guides would be, i.e., a single guide for birds, another for trees, another for mammals, etc..., but there's enough information here to help you identify most of what you might see in an area. Also gives some nice information about local preserves and parks, places to go, places of interest from a naturalist standpoint, and has wonderful photography of wildlife throughout. A great, basic guide.

This is an essential guide book that no nature lover should be without. It includes sections on the flora and fauna of the region, plus lots of other useful information for outdoor sports lovers, including guides to all the national parks in the area. If you love hiking but don't know what birds or insects you're seeing along the route, this is the book for you--there are color pictures of all the creatures, with descriptions of their distinctive features, habitat, and behavior. Also, it's small enough that it can actually fit into your jacket, backpack or (large) pocket, so you won't be tempted to leave it at home.

I just moved to Colorado, and this is a great, affordable option to buying separate guides for birds, trees, insects, and minerals. There is so much information packed into the book, and yet it is small enough to take on any hike.