Peter Alden

Finding a copy of this treasure at a wonderful thriftstore in Sedona was the cherry on top of an already delightful trip. Until finding it, my only sorrow of the adventure had been my near-total ignorance of the desert flora that was on spectular springtime display.

There is a certain power and satisfaction to naming. Once I had this book, I felt both as I reviewed the many pictures from our trip and named the beauty I'd captured. I squealed with delight to find the book not only features show more flowers (my personal obsession) but also star charts of the night sky, explainations of different geological formations, butterflies, mammals, and more.

Overall very easy to use. However, a number of photographs were not clear enough -- either too far from subject or too shadowy -- for confident identification. show less

Pros: Beautiful pictures, well organized, pretty comprehensive
Cons: Pictures are small and hard to identify in varying seasons, not enough background info on individual species

Surprisingly comprehensive, in a format even my four year old can manage, small enough to take with us on hikes and exploring trips, this book has been in use constantly since we purchased it last year. I like this particular series, because each book includes the most common animals, insects, and plants. Hurray for field guides!

This field guide makes a useful supplement to another field guide. If, for example, you're going out to spend a day in the field birding, you could throw this small volume in your daypack alongside your birding field guide. Then when you're at the beach watching 2nd year Glaucous-winged Gulls feeding on small crustaceans, you can pull out this guide and determine that they are eating Red Crabs (Cancer productus). This volume is also useful for getting an overview of the flora and fauna of show more California -- echinoderms, arthropods, crustaceans, molluscs, mammals, etc., etc. However, the small size and encyclopedic scope of the book means that species descriptions are cursory, and identifying photos are too small; and some of the species descriptions are so brief as to be just plain misleading. On the other hand, one of the best sections in the book is the listing of parks and nature preserves in the back of the book -- this section alone is worth buying the book for. show less