I thought it would be nice/interesting to see what the community’s current favorite field guides are. As an aspiring amateur generalist I have lots of field guides but I want to know, what’s on your bookshelf and getting a lot of attention recently? My current favorite in rotation (2018-2019): Pe…

I see that you’ve been in my observations recently, IDing some of them, so thanks!

[image] Quercitron: As a little kid, I loved gazing at the illustrations in those Golden Guides and reading the text. The wonderful thing to me about those illustrations is that they could impart a sense of wonder or mystery to even the most common and seemingly ordinary species. Like the Mam…

Here are some of the field guides around the desk in my office. I have had some of these for decades and I pick up many of the others as used books. And a few I buy new. [IMG_0716] PNW plants. The sedge and grass guides at right are particularly useful and well illustrated. (I’d think so; I’m…

I posted in this thread in 2019 and have enjoyed reading everyone’s recommendations. I’d like to add that the Northern Forest Atlas field guides are exceptional ( and free to download! ). The Sedges of the Northern Forest, in particular, made sedges–a plant family I once considered confusing–accessibl…

Oh I would love a tadpole/metamorphosis guide like that for eastern North America.

Recently I bought a fantastic guide about bugs of Spain. It has all the 545 bugs of the infraorder Pentatomomorpha of the Iberian Peninsula. https://lynxnaturebooks.com/product/chinches-pentatomorfas/ Every species has a whole page with photos of different stages - on white background with signs s…

Any recommendations for a field guide or identification guide for bumblebees (genus Bombus) in the lower Great Lakes (Ohio, Indiana) and Pennsylvania? I would like something that easily lays out coloration by bee role and sex, and also has a range map for each species. I have found good ones for W…

I have Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide by Paul Williams et al. (Princeton Univ. Press 2014) A typical species account looks like this: [IMG_8132] You can see that I have a lot of pages marked, but even so I can only ID 4 or 5 species!

As an aside: For bees (and other pollinators) in Pennsylvania (but not the Great Lakes region) you can add them to this excellent project: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/pollinator-interactions-on-plants-pip-of-the-ne-us If you join the project, you can add other users’ observations to it. I…

[image] danly: As an aside: For bees (and other pollinators) in Pennsylvania (but not the Great Lakes region) you can add them to this excellent project: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/pollinator-interactions-on-plants-pip-of-the-ne-us Thanks! I’m in that project and I think it’s great…

Current or general favorite field guides?

Nature Talk

asteroidowl January 1, 2026, 6:19pm 145

Thanks! I’m in that project and I think it’s great! I also joined another project looking at bees in certain NE and Midwest states.

Thank you so much for the guide recommendation - this is EXACTLY what I was hoping to get. Thank you!!!

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Current or general favorite field guides?

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