Does anyone have any recommendations for identification books that are specific to California? Books on birds, plants, and fungus are what I’m mostly looking for but things outside of that are also helpful. I’m also interested in buying an encyclopedia (about California wildlife) for myself and didn…

Welcome to the forum! For plants there’s Jepson (in ebook format elsewhere but not for free that I’ve seen). And this probably is less of what you’re looking for, but here’s some for marine bivalves , terrestrial gastropods , and cave fauna . The last 2 are more checklists than true ID books, but sti…

Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast by Christian Schwarz and Noah Siegel is pretty great and both authors are active on iNat. (Full disclosure, Christian is a friend of mine, but it’s a great book) I know you didn’t metion herps, but if you’re in southern California (or visit it often), I really like Li…

As @thomaseverest says, the Jepson Manual is probably the best guide for practically any plant you’ll find in California. I bought Trees and Shrubs of California a while ago, and I carry it around with me whenever I’m hiking (especially in unfamiliar forests or shrub land) because it’s small enough …

I have been enjoying their Field Guide to California Insects, which doesn’t attempt to cover every single insect (or it would be a whole bookshelf) but provide a good representative sample. Although they did accidentally list Chrysididae as being part of Chalcidoidea, which sent me on an internet se…

I don’t have a Jepson manual, I should remember that I want one. I have Belzer’s Roadside Plants of Southern California which is a thin book that nonetheless covers the vast majority of plants I see hiking in Los Angeles county; it’s a great introductory book in terms of covering the most common pla…

Depending on where in CA you are there might be very local books, covering a region or even just a county. I like Flora of the Santa Ana River and Environs, and Wildflowers of Orange County and the Santa Ana Mountains . Both authors of that second book are on iNat so it is fun when I see them making …

As well as the great suggestions so far, I’ve lots of mileage out of my western Peterson guidebooks . I’d also like to give a shout out to the amazing Natural History of Orange County website, at http://nathistoc.bio.uci.edu/ . I have no connection to it but it was my go-to place for starting to lear…

[image] jon_sullivan: shout out to the amazing Natural History of Orange County website, at http://nathistoc.bio.uci.edu/ . yes that’s a great one!

California identification book recommendations?

Nature Talk

frondsinhighplaces December 1, 2021, 4:35am 3

The California Natural History Guides series is generally very good, and less technical.

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California identification book recommendations?

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