6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mount Rainier lovers will love this book, June 9, 2000
This review is from: A Pocket Field Guide to the Plants and Animals of Mount Rainier (Paperback)
The problem with most field guides is that they've forgotten they are field guides and not coffee-table art books.
Not so with Joe Dreimiller's POCKET GUIDE TO THE PLANTS AND ANIMALS OF MOUNT RAINIER!
Sure, this book has plenty of pretty color pictures made by its three illustrators, but they are diagnostic illustrations, just like Roger Tory Peterson emphasized in his bird books. So, you have something pretty to look at but you also have something that will help you identify the common plants and animals to be seen in Mt Rainier National Park.
Pictures are nice, but after you've used the illustrations to identify an Elephant-head pedicularis, Golden-mantled ground squirrel, a Varied thrush, or a Mountain hemlock, Dreimiller tells you the field marks so you'll know what makes these things different from their closest relitives. That way, if you don't have his book next time, you've learned what distingushes each plant or animal from every other plant or animal.
And the help you get from this little gem doesn't stop there. Let's say you've used this pocket guide to identify a False hellebore [Veratrum viride]. Next time you're in the Park, hiking with a friend, and you spot it, you can say, "Oh! Look at that False hellebore! Did you know its botanic name means 'green plant with the black roots?'" And so you look at the roots and, "Wow! They're black."
For all the organisms in this book, there are not only field marks but an extensive list of notes to help you remember why each is so important to know.
Not only that, but there are descriptions of all the groups so you'll learn why mammals are different from birds which are different from amphibians. There is an extensive bird list for the Park including accidentals. And, unsual for this kind of book, there is a mammal list too. And to top off the list catagory, each habitat has a list of common plants as well as suggestions for places to walk.
Did I mention that Dreimiller's book is also pocket sized? How many field guides have you bought in recent years that don't even fit in the pocket of your daypack?
I also liked the short reference list at the end of the book, referring me to other helpful resources. The index is short, but complete.
Evidently Dreimiller worked as a ranger at Mount Rainier for a number of years and it shows. He knows his plants and his animals. All in all, I would reccomend this little gem to anybody who wants to know more about what they see while in the Park. And the best thing about this field guide is that it teaches you things that can be used elsewhere in the Cascades.
I write for a number of newspapers in the Seattle area and I'm pretty sensitive to writers who wastes my time trying to copy the prose of Muir, Leopold, Pyle, and all the other good nature writers. I liked this book because it tells me what I need to know without the usual cumbersome "awesome beauty of nature" rhetoric that encumbers so many field guides. Leave the literature for the coffee table. Take Dreimiller's book into the field.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pocket Naturalist, June 20, 2000
This review is from: A Pocket Field Guide to the Plants and Animals of Mount Rainier (Paperback)
Like a good naturalist or interpreter, this guide provides not only a concise way to identify the most common flora and fauna, but adds interesting facts and folklore. It will surely make the living things in and around Rainier very accessible, and provide even the most knowledgeable biologist/naturalist with enjoyable new information. Illustrations are detailed and beautiful, and the general information and references are an added bonus. And it all fits into your pocket! Great!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Pocket Guide to the Plants and Animals of Mount Rainier, March 22, 2000
This review is from: A Pocket Field Guide to the Plants and Animals of Mount Rainier (Paperback)
An excellent guidebook to the Mount Rainier area. As a former Mount Rainier Ranger, I would recommend this book to anyone considering a visit to Mount Rainier National Park. The illustrations are beautifully rendered and the accompanying text is accurate and insightful. The book is small enough to fit in a daypack or take it along for a backpack along the Wonderland Trail.
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