Thanks to all who’ve since added their suggestions. Also, a warm welcome to the new forum (and to this topic!) to @wdvanhem as well!
Keep the suggestions comin’
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Great suggestions everyone.
I’ve found Mark Elbroch’s Mammal Tracks and Sign: A Guide to North American Species extremely useful. I’m not aware of a field guide to North American mammal tracks that’s as comprehensive. Perhaps more importantly, the book is contains a great deal of information on how to interpret mammal tracks and sign, so you can start to understand what the critters are doing instead of just noting their presence.
While not a traditional field guide, per se, What the Robin Knows: How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World by Jon Young is kind of like a field guide for observing bird behavior. This book helped me expand my perspective beyond simply identifying birds towards a greater understanding of why they behave the way they do. (I hope this suggestion isn’t too far outside the bounds of this thread.)
Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide has already been mentioned, but it was so valuable to me when I first started trying to identify plants that I have to note it again. For beginning naturalists in its geographic area, it really is hard to beat.
Finally, I wish there were an equivalent regional Jepson Manual for every part of the U.S. I carried my Jepson Desert Manual everywhere when I worked at Death Valley over ten years ago. While expensive, it’s small enough to fit in your pack, quite comprehensive, and its keys, illustrations, and glossary are top notch.
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I do not have many field guides (at least not non-digital ones), but my favorite is the Swift Guide to Butterflies. It focuses on US species.
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I love this topic.
My three favourite North American field guides at the moment are:
- National Geographic’s Field Guide to the Birds of Western North America
- Mammals of North America by Ronald Kays and Don Wilson
- The Laws Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada by John Muir Laws
I’m Australian, so if you ever visit, my favourite field guides are:
- A Field Guide to the Mammals of Australia by Peter Menkhorst and Frank Knight
- Field Guide to Australian Birds by Michael Morcombe. A little old now.
- The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia by Graham Pizzey and Frank Knight. The definitive field guide to Australian birds.
- Native Plants of the Sydney Region by Alan Fairley and Philip Moore. An excellent guide, but obviously most useful in the Sydney region.
I’m spending a bit of time in Colorado this northern summer, so I’d be keen to know what are some decent field guides for that part of the Rockies.
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Nope! Perfectly fine (at least by me). I think it’s totally relevant and useful. Generally speaking, if there’s really an unrelated post in one of the topics here one of us moderators or a staff person will gently let you know and possibly even help move the post to a more appropriate or new topic.
Thanks again for the contributions, @mikefitz. Welcome to the new forum!
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I personally love to use BugGuide. If I have a general idea of tribe or genus, I can look at the info and images submitted. It isn’t flawless, but I have learned so much via that source. This is really nice since the number of actual field guides to insects are few and far between.
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@tuftedparidae, I also love BugGuide and was first introduced to it by an iNatter when I was getting started IDing bugs. great username too! Welcome to the new forum and thanks for adding to the awesome and growing list of resources here
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Not a fieldguide, but great for finding literature on spiders:
https://wsc.nmbe.ch/search
Good pocket guides for New Zealand are the Photographic Guide series from New Holland publishers. Not comprehensive, but give a good representation on the commonly encountered species, while still being able to fit in a pocket. You can pick and mix based on the area you are going and what you are likely to encounter, and the surprising bonus feature of being able to tell what your favourite groups are by how worn each book gets! My “Sea Fishes” is in near mint condition while my “Spiders” looks like it’s been through the wringer!
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I prefer to use the much-disliked National Geographic Bird Guide: North America. I look through the book for species common in the Texas area, then keep that information in my head when out in the field.
It’s also handy for invasive species, as Sibley and Stoke’s guides I find don’t have certain city-specific invasives listed (Still can’t find a guide with a Red-vented Bulbul for Houston, TX).
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I’m working abroad, so I don’t have my collection of usual fieldguides with me (it’s about 4 or so boxes of books packed up) and the ones I have for where I’m working are primarily digital, but this is what’s on the shelf in my room (mainly purchased on a recent work/vacation trip to East Africa) and I have a bunch more local ones in my office.
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Since I mainly identify moths, I use Bugguide as a second source. I use Moth Photographers Group (MPG - and I always think 'Moth photographers Guild) to narrow down the options (many moths on one page), then follow the links on that site to either Bugguide or some other site. Bugguide usually includes a description of of the Moth, which helps me focus on the pertinent features. It also usually has flight dates, and often has references to similar species (which for moths is a great resource).
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I’m in the Seattle area and iNat mainly in the western US. Here is a list of the field guides I have on my shelf (from Goodreads):
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/28990934-neil-gilham?shelf=field-guides-pacific-northwest
For anyone in the Seattle area, by far the best guide to have for wild plants is: “Wild Plants of Greater Seattle (2nd ed)” by Arthur Lee Jacobson. Any of the California Natural History Guides published by the University of California Press are absolutely top-notch the best for California and the western US. I have their guide for spiders and for mushrooms; and use them often.
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What is the best field guide for trees and shrubs in Northeast US(or specifically, Pennsylvania)?
In Texas, the Botanical Research Institute of Texas offers their Illustrated Guide for North and Central Texas and also the non-dicot version for East Texas in PDF form (see http://brit.org/departments/press). You can download and take with you electronically or print out pages to take with you on paper.
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@bluebird81 I know that isn’t what you asked for specifically, and it covers a broader range but I do love that Sibley guide. Welcome to the new forum! 
Where else are you going to find a “Key to Common Inflorescence Types”?
i referenced PDF publications from the Botanical Research Institute of Texas earlier. they have glossaries that may provide something like what you’re describing. for example, if you look at the glossary for Vol 1 of the East Texas Guide (https://www.brit.org/sites/default/files/public/BRIT%20Press/IFNCT_Docs/SBM_26-pp1153-1509.pdf, starting at page 1359), you’ll find illustrated references for leaf morphology, flower morphology, hair morphology, etc. it can be downloaded for free and used electronically or printed out.
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I still consult my collection of Audubon Guides. I also have the Peterson Moth guide and an old copy of the Eastern bird guide.
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Some other guides not mentioned that I would put in the “excellent” category:
- Orchids, Northern Midwest - Orchids of The North Woods
- Butterflies, Ontario - ROM Field Guide to Butterflies of Ontario
- Birds, Europe - Collins Bird Guide
- Shorebirds, North America - The Shorebird Guide
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For trees and shrubs in PA, Rhoads & Block’s The Plants of Pennsylvania is very comprehensive, though also large and not cheap. The keys are pretty good. You might also have good luck with gobotany.newenglandwild.org, though some of the more southern-affiliated species will be missing.
Since I’m sort of smack in between New England and the central Great Lakes I find that between The Plants of PA, gobotany.newenglandwild.org, and https://michiganflora.net/ plants are usually pretty well covered, and since I can pull up the latter two on my phone they qualify as “field guides,” right?
When I was in Georgia recently I borrowed a copy of “Trees of Georgia and Adjacent States” by Brown & Kirkman and found it to be very useful. The “Recognition difficulties with other taxa” section for each entry was really well fleshed-out and considered a lot of subtleties that aided in identification.
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