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

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

So nice that all kinds of the local species are together in one book, plus a brief geological history, the different biotopes and sky maps! We have used it in Yellowstone.

A good quick-reference for the more common types of plants and animals endemic to the state as a whole, but poor for identifying the many sub-species and local flora and fauna that exist in California's microclimates. Likely useful for a casual birder in Los Angeles or San Francisco, but not for a curious hiker on the Central Coast or Channel Islands.