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29-534: The Collins Bird Guide is a field guide to the birds of the Western Palearctic . Its authors are Lars Svensson , Killian Mullarney , Dan Zetterström and Peter J. Grant , and it is illustrated by Killian Mullarney and Dan Zetterström (with two plates of North American passerines contributed by Larry McQueen in the first edition). It has been described as "undoubtedly the finest field guide that has ever been produced", and "the last great bird book of

58-544: A camera. Several months after graduating, he traveled to New York City to attend a meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union , where he met distinguished figures such as the artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes and up-and-comers like Joseph Hickey . Soon after, he moved to New York City and earned money by painting furniture, so that he could attend classes at the Art Students League in 1927-1929 and later at

87-517: A description of the objects covered, together with paintings or photographs and an index. More serious and scientific field identification books, including those intended for students, will probably include identification keys to assist with identification, but the publicly accessible field guide is more often a browsable picture guide organized by family, colour, shape, location or other descriptors. Popular interests in identifying things in nature probably were strongest in bird and plant guides. Perhaps

116-419: A field guide is to help the reader identify a bird, plant, rock, butterfly or other natural object down to at least the popular naming level. To this end some field guides employ simple keys and other techniques: the reader is usually encouraged to scan illustrations looking for a match, and to compare similar-looking choices using information on their differences. Guides are often designed to first lead readers to

145-498: A job at a local furniture factory. Roger's middle name pays homage to his Uncle Tory, who resided in Oil City, Pennsylvania , located south of Jamestown. He graduated from high school in 1925 and went to work in one of Jamestown's many furniture companies. During his high school years, one of his teachers, Miss Hornbeck, had encouraged his interest in sketching and painting birds and nature, while he waited to earn enough money to purchase

174-478: A photograph can have a living immediacy a good drawing is really more instructive. Field guides aid in improving the state of knowledge of various taxa. By making the knowledge of experienced museum specialists available to amateurs, they increase the gathering of information by amateurs from a wider geographic area and increasing the communication of these findings to the specialists. Roger Tory Peterson Roger Tory Peterson (August 28, 1908 – July 28, 1996)

203-401: A photograph to emphasize the field marks. A photograph is a record of a fleeting instant; a drawing is a composite of the artist's experience. The artist can edit out, show field marks to best advantage, and delete unnecessary clutter. He can choose position and stress basic color and pattern unmodified by transitory light and shade. ... The artist has more options and far more control ... Whereas

232-427: A section detailing identification, and concludes with a section on voice. Accompanying most species accounts is a small colour map showing breeding, wintering and migrant range. The guide is also available as a paid-for app, for iPhone and Android devices. The app includes all of the text and images from the print edition, as well as audio recordings. Additional data can be bought separately; the first such package being

261-683: A set of distribution maps for 271 species, from the British Trust for Ornithology 's Bird Atlas 2007–11 . All versions cover Europe, North Atlantic islands, much of North Africa and the Middle East. Most of the species covered in the main part of the guide are regular breeding, wintering or migrant species in its area of coverage, although some vagrants are also included. There are additional sections giving brief accounts of (a) vagrants and (b) introduced breeding species and species recorded only as escapes. Field guide It will typically include

290-681: A wide array of topics, from rocks and minerals to beetles and reptiles. He developed the Peterson Identification System and is known for the clarity of both his illustrations of field guides and his delineation of relevant field marks. Paul R. Ehrlich , in The Birder's Handbook: A Field Guide to the Natural History of North American Birds (Ehrlich et al 1988), said of Peterson: In this century, no one has done more to promote an interest in living creatures than Roger Tory Peterson,

319-438: Is often difficult to capture the constant features using a small number of photographs. Illustrations by artists or post processing of photographs help in emphasising specific features needed to for reliable identification. Peterson introduced the idea of lines to point to these key features. This passage was written by his wife, Virginia Marie Peterson , in the preface to one of his field guides: A drawing can do much more than

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348-573: The Audubon Society , the RSPB , the Field Studies Council , National Geographic , HarperCollins , and many others all produce quality field guides. It is somewhat difficult to generalise about how field guides are intended to be used, because this varies from one guide to another, partly depending on how expert the targeted reader is expected to be. For general public use, the main function of

377-817: The Duck River Cemetery in Old Lyme, and in the Pine Hill Cemetery in Falconer, New York . The Roger Tory Peterson Institute (RTPI) of Natural History in Jamestown, New York, launched in 1984, and ramped up its activity in 1986 with its hire of the first president, Dr. Harold D. Mahan. At that time, the institute's primary mission was described as being "to develop programs to increase the number of serious students of natural history". The institute's official ribbon-cutting and dedication took place in 1993. The RTPI houses

406-624: The National Academy of Design . He also managed to gain entrance to the eventually famous Bronx County Bird Club , though not himself from the Bronx . He hoped to attend Cornell University , but his family's finances were not sufficient for the cost of tuition. Instead, he managed to obtain a position as an art instructor at the Rivers School in Brookline, Massachusetts . In 1934, his A Field Guide to

435-651: The 20th century". It was originally published in Swedish and Danish in 1999, and in English in hardback in the same year, and later in paperback. A large-format English edition has also been produced, as has a German and Dutch edition. The first edition was translated to 14 European languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch and German. A second edition, revised and enlarged, was published in January 2010. A series of updates and corrections were made in 2015, with no change to

464-469: The Birds was published. The initial run of 2,000 copies sold out within a week. Peterson was married three times: briefly, to Mildred Washington, for 33 years to Barbara Coulter, with whom he had two sons, and for 20 years to Virginia Westervelt. His second and third wives contributed to the research and organization of his guides. Virginia Marie Peterson developed the species range maps that were introduced in

493-570: The age of ten, Charles Peterson lost his father to appendicitis and was sent off to work in the mills. After leaving the mills, he earned his living as a traveling salesman. Roger's mother, Henrietta Badar, was an immigrant, at the age of four, of German and Polish extraction, who grew up in Rochester, New York . She went to a teachers' college, and was teaching in Elmira, New York , when she met Charles. The two married, and moved to Jamestown, where Charles took

522-524: The appropriate section of the book, where the choices are not so overwhelming in number. Guides for students often introduce the concept of identification keys . Plant field guides such as Newcomb's Wildflower Guide (which is limited in scope to the wildflowers of northeastern North America) frequently have an abbreviated key that helps limit the search. Insect guides tend to limit identification to Order or Family levels rather than individual species, due to their diversity. Many taxa show variability and it

551-468: The differences – people could use his bird guide in the field to compare species quickly to make identification easier. This technique, the " Peterson Identification System ", was used in most of Peterson's Field Guides from animal tracks to seashells and has been widely adopted by other publishers and authors as well. Today, each field guide has its own range, focus and organization. Specialist publishers such as Croom Helm, along with organisations like

580-498: The edition number. A third edition was published in 2022. The cover of the first edition, in all formats, depicts a barn owl . On the second edition, this was replaced by an Arctic tern . Original Swedish version of the third edition features a bluethroat , while the English version shows a barn swallow . Eleven pages of introductory material are followed by the book's main content: 366 pages of text and colour paintings. The text for each species gives brief status notes, followed by

609-420: The fifth edition of A Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern and Central North America . Peterson's first work on birds was an article titled "Notes from Field and Study" published in the magazine Bird-Lore . In this piece, he recorded two anecdotal sight records from 1925: a Carolina wren and a titmouse . In 1934 he published the first edition of his popular Guide to the Birds , considered by some to be

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638-504: The first modern field guide . The first printing of 2‚000 copies sold out in one week and the book subsequently went through six editions. One of the inspirations for his field guide was a diagram of ducks, created by Ernest Thompson Seton in his book Two Little Savages (1903). Peterson co-wrote Wild America with James Fisher , and edited or wrote many of the volumes in the Peterson Field Guide series. His contributions span

667-572: The first popular field guide to plants in the United States was the 1893 How to Know the Wildflowers by "Mrs. William Starr Dana" ( Frances Theodora Parsons ). In 1890, Florence Merriam published Birds Through an Opera-Glass , describing 70 common species. Focused on living birds observed in the field, the book is considered the first in the tradition of modern, illustrated bird guides. In 1902, now writing as Florence Merriam Bailey (having married

696-797: The inventor of the modern field guide . Over the course of his lifetime, Peterson received many accolades, including the United States' Presidential Medal of Freedom . He was honored by the two Swedish District lodges of the Vasa Order of America , who selected him to be Swedish-American of the Year. He was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and received 23 honorary doctorates. Peterson died in 1996 at his home in Old Lyme, Connecticut . His remains were cremated, and his ashes were spread on and around Great Island near Old Lyme, under grave memorials in

725-602: The largest collection of Peterson's work. Its present mission and vision is stated as being to challenge visitors "to confront environmental issues of regional, national and global concern" and to be "a living embodiment of the Peterson Field Guide". In 1997, the Harvard Museum of Natural History established the Roger Tory Peterson Medal "to keep alive the memory of the pioneering naturalist and author of

754-763: The legendary Peterson Field Guide to Birds .” In 2000, the American Birding Association established the Roger Tory Peterson Award for Promoting the Cause of Birding . Three biographies about Peterson have been written. The first, a 1977 authorized biography by John Devlin and Grace Naismith, received mixed reviews. Two new biographies were published around the centenary of Peterson's birth. Douglas Carlson's Roger Tory Peterson: A Biography and Elizabeth Rosenthal's Birdwatcher: The Life of Roger Tory Peterson (2008) were reviewed by Todd Engstrom in

783-422: The size of the book to fit the pocket, including colour plates, and producing guides in uniform editions that covered subjects such as garden and woodland flowers, mushrooms, insects, and dogs. In 1934, Roger Tory Peterson , using his fine skill as an artist, changed the way modern field guides approached identification. Using color plates with paintings of similar species together – and marked with arrows showing

812-580: The zoologist Vernon Bailey ), she published Handbook of Birds of the Western United States . By contrast, the Handbook is designed as a comprehensive reference for the lab rather a portable book for the field. It was arranged by taxonomic order and had clear descriptions of species size, distribution, feeding, and nesting habits. From this point into the 1930s, features of field guides were introduced by Chester A. Reed and others such as changing

841-490: Was an American naturalist , conservationist , citizen scientist ornithologist , artist and illustrator, educator, and a founder of the 20th-century environmental movement , where he was an inspiration for many. Peterson was born in Jamestown, New York , a small, industrial city in western New York, on August 28, 1908. His father, Charles Gustav Peterson, was an immigrant from Sweden who came to America as an infant. At

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