Product Description

Filled with concise descriptions and stunning photographs, the National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Rocky Mountain States belongs in the home of every Rocky Mountain
resident and in the suitcase or backpack of every visitor. This compact volume contains:

An easy-to-use field guide for identifying 1,000 of the state's wildflowers, trees, mushrooms, mosses, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, butterflies, mammals, and much more;

A complete overview of the Rocky Mountain region's natural history, covering geology, wildlife habitats, ecology, fossils, rocks and minerals, clouds and weather patterns, and the night sky;

An extensive sampling of the area's best parks, preserves, mountains, forests, and wildlife sanctuaries, with detailed descriptions and visitor information for 50 sites and notes on dozens of others.

The guide is packed with visual information -- the 1,500 full-color images include more than 1,300 photographs, 11 maps, and 16 night-sky charts, as well as more than 100 drawings explaining everything from geological processes to the basic features of different plants and animals.

For everyone who lives or spends time in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, or Wyoming, there can be no finer guide to the area's natural surroundings than the National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Rocky Mountain States.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #170640 in Books
• Published on: 1999-03-23
• Released on: 1999-03-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Turtleback
• 448 pages

Amazon.com Review
If you're going to Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, or Colorado (or live there already), chances are you have an affinity for nature, in which case the National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Rocky Mountain States is a book you'll want to keep close at all times. A durable book meant to be consulted in the field and on the mountain, it starts off with a map of the region, and then launches into an overview of the topography and geology, the habitats and ecology, the weather patterns and cloud formations common to the Rocky Mountain region.

Part Two is the field guide proper, with brilliant photographs and pithily informative descriptions of over 1,000 of the flora and fauna to be found there, covering lichens and conifers, wildflowers and ferns, spiders and insects, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. There are vivid pictures of feral horses and mule deer, an elk cow nuzzling her calf and a male elk strutting with his antlers, and there are photos and write-ups for wolverines and mountain lions, moose, caribou, and bison. There are also wonderful pages full of whirligig beetles and margined burying beetles, hairy rove beetles and spotted tiger beetles, not to mention the jagged ambush bug and meadow spittlebug. The flora section is appealing, as well, with delicate western bog laurel and orange honeysuckle close-ups, cliff fendlerbush flowers and Pacific red elderberry, water smartweed and purple western monkshood. There's also an appendix of parks and preserves, and pages full of the constellations you can see at night with no city lights to mar the view. With a century of nature preservation under its belt, Audubon does justice to the field-guide genre. --Stephanie Gold

From the Inside Flap
Filled with concise descriptions and stunning photographs, the National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Rocky Mountain States belongs in the home of every Rocky Mountain
resident and in the suitcase or backpack of every visitor. This compact volume contains:

An easy-to-use field guide for identifying 1,000 of the state's wildflowers, trees, mushrooms, mosses, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, butterflies, mammals, and much more;

A complete overview of the Rocky Mountain region's natural history, covering geology, wildlife habitats, ecology, fossils, rocks and minerals, clouds and weather patterns, and the night sky;

An extensive sampling of the area's best parks, preserves, mountains, forests, and wildlife sanctuaries, with detailed descriptions and visitor information for 50 sites and notes on dozens of others.

The guide is packed with visual information -- the 1,500 full-color images include more than 1,300 photographs, 11 maps, and 16 night-sky charts, as well as more than 100 drawings explaining everything from geological processes to the basic features of different plants and animals.

For everyone who lives or spends time in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, or Wyoming, there can be no finer guide to the area's natural surroundings than the National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Rocky Mountain States.

From the Back Cover
For every resident of and visitor to the Rocky Mountain states, this uniquely compact yet comprehensive volume is the essential guide to the Rocky Mountain region's natural world. Whether you're at home or on the road, the National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Rocky Mountain States tells you: what you'll see in the heavens on crystalline Rocky Mountain nights; the wildflowers that flourish in different Rocky Mountain habitats; the birds you'll encounter in the mountains, on the plains, and everywhere in between; the region's best natural sites--how to reach them, when to visit, and what you'll see.

Here, too, is complete information on the geology, fossils, wildlife habitats, weather, and ecology of the Rocky Mountain states, as well as the region's trees, mushrooms, mammals, insects, reptiles, fishes, and other life-forms--all beautifully illustrated in 1,500 photographs, drawings, and maps.

Customer Reviews

Audubon's Rocky Mt. States Field Guide: A great buy
As with all of the National Audubon Society's field guides, the "National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Rocky Mountain States" is a most worthwhile purchase, perfect as a gift or for your own collection. The guide is durable and very portable, which makes it well suited for use in the outdoors. More importantly, it has excellent content. Despite its small size, the field guide contains a wealth of information. In addition to the usual focus on flora and fauna species, there is information on constellations, parks, ecosystems, and more. While the depth and detail of the information in the various sections is not vast, the breadth of subject matter more than makes up for this; the information presented is ideal for a general field guide. Moreover, the book is beautiful, filled with gorgeous color photographs. Residents of the Rocky Mountain states and non-residents will both love it.

Very pretty, but kinda useless
First, the positive: this is a very complete and very pretty-looking guidebook. It does cover just about everything from the night sky to lichens and rocks. I can imagine an eastern tourist leafing through, anticipating all the wonderful things they'll see on their trip through Rocky Mountain National or Glacier park.

However, in the field, the guide is next to useless, as there are no keys, no list of the details and differences that make, for example, one tree a Ponderosa and another a Lodgepole pine. The only way to disern what exactly you are look through the book randomly until you happen upon a photo (generally too small to supply necessary detail) that looks kinda similar to whatever it is you are trying to identify.

This book is best at capturing the endless possibilities of our Rocky Mountains, a compendium of all the wonderful things you may run across. It won't however help you actually find them.

Best field guide for your pack in most Rockies trips
This is not the most thorough of all field guides imaginable but it is easily the best that I can imagine that you could take with you in the field. It really is pocket-sized! It will fit in the shirt pocket of my long-sleeved flannel shirts, though it's too heavy (450pp.) to be entirely comfortable there. It fits better in roomy pants pockets, jacket pockets, or the side pocket of a day pack.

The book has everything, including some geology and habitat information as well as mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, birds and plants. It's exhaustive for the mammals that I've seen in the Rockies and nearly exhaustive for birds. It has good, small pictures of everything with information about ranges and seasons. There is plenty of information, clearly organized, to help you identify things that you see.