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by Gerry Rising

There are many fine books about the out of doors – authors like Ernest Thompson Seton, John Burroughs, Henry David Thoreau and John McPhee come immediately to mind – but the first thing most of us are interested in about nature is identification. What are those birds at my feeders? What are those roadside wildflowers? What tree is producing that floating cotton? What is that butterfly visiting my garden?

Those identification questions are seemingly endless. There are, after all, hundreds of birds and mammals, thousands of wildflowers and tens of thousands of insects.

And each time you come across another animal or plant in the wild, you probably wonder not only about its identification but also whether it is common or rare and whether it is native to the area or an alien. Those are things you also find in identification guides.

There are literally hundreds of such guides and new ones are published almost weekly. In just the past month I have received three. You and I can easily find ourselves overwhelmed. So let me try to sort out this long list to give you a few key books you should consider as starters.

If I had to pick just one identification guide, it would be the Reader’s Digest North American Wildlife. I salute the dozens of authors and artists who contributed to this book. This compendium includes mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians, fish, invertebrates, trees and shrubs, wildflowers, nonflowering plants, and mushrooms. Tiny range maps accompany each species to give a general idea of where it is to be found.

This is the one guide I carry on canoe trips when weight is a serious concern. And it has served me well. Obviously, selections have been made to keep the total species illustrated to 2000, but rarely have I come across one not included in this excellent book.

What is too often lost on beginners is the idea of communities. As a city forester once told me, “Every tree has its particular insect parasites.” Some animals even take their name from an association: the spicebush swallowtail butterfly, for example, is often found near spicebushes. And this is true in general. You find particular mammals, birds, insects and plants occur in certain types of community. And that can help a great deal with identification.

A good book about such communities is John Kricher’s Eastern Forests. (Like many of the other books I will be mentioning, it is one of the Roger Tory Peterson field guide series.) If you are planning a visit to south Florida, for example, you would be well advised to read the section about the Everglades in Kricher’s book. Stephen Whitney has written a similar guide to Western Forests.

But there is another way of thinking about communities. Start with a single species, say a sugar maple, and consider all the insects and plants you would expect to find nearby. Or, in fact, expect not to find: goldenrods and sugar maples don’t mix (in technical jargon, they are allelopathic).

A delightful series of books by John Eastman address communities in this way. Among them are The Book of Forest and Thicket, The Book of Swamp and Bog and The Book of Field and Roadside. I promise you that you will see nature in a new way when you delve into any one of these books.

Now to a few of the guides that focus on particular classes of wildlife.

There are many fine candidates for bird guides. The best remains the first. I have used successive editions of Roger Tory Peterson’s Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America since shortly after the first was published (and immediately sold out) in 1934. New updated editions continue to be produced despite Peterson’s death in 1996. There is a corresponding western guide that I use when traveling. In 2010, the eastern and western guides were combined into a new Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America, but the accompanying new editions of the eastern and western guides are smaller and easier to carry.

Many advanced birders prefer The Sibley Guide to Birds by David Allen Sibley, which devotes a single page to each species. I prefer the Peterson guides because they include group portraits of similar species for comparison. This is especially important for beginners.

For those of you whose focus is on bird feeding, a 2010 book by Bill Thompson III, will serve you well. Its title is Identifying and Feeding Birds. Bill is also editor of Bird Watcher’s Digest, an outstanding periodical for birders of all abilities.

There are two excellent wildflower books I carry in my car. Since I cannot choose between them, I will recommend both. Long a favorite has been the Peterson and McKenny Northeastern Wildflowers, but I began to use the key in Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide by Lawrence Newcomb a few years ago and find it very helpful in narrowing down identification. (There is a discipline to using a key but learning the procedure is well worth the effort. Taxonomists – scientists who identify and name organisms – use keys all the time.)

Eric Eaton, with Kenn Kaufman as co-author, has addressed a near-impossible task and produced the Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America. They have had to make choices to focus on the most common of the over 90,000 species found in this hemisphere, but they offer what a professional entomologist friend calls “an incomparable guide.”

Without the fanfare they deserve, I mention two other guides, both in the Peterson series: Mammals of North America and Eastern Reptiles and Amphibians; and an excellent book on trees: Grolier’s Field Guide to North American Trees by Thomas S. Elias.

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Gerry Rising is a State University of New York Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus. He was editor of the New York State journal, The Kingbird, and continues to write a weekly “Nature Watch” column for The Buffalo Sunday News.

By Christine A. Smyczynski

If you like gardening and bird watching, why not plant a garden that is pleasing to the eye, as well as attractive to birds, mainly hummingbirds, and butterflies. Hummingbirds love nectar, and while they enjoy getting it from feeders, they really enjoy getting natural nectar from flowers.

Planting red flowers is recommended as hummingbirds are attracted to the color red. However, they will actually feed from any color flower, for example, white, orange, and pink. They also enjoy feeding from flowering shrubs and trees and hanging plants.

Some of the flowers that are rich in nectar include impatiens, petunias, daylilies and hollyhocks. They also like herbs, like mint and sage. Make sure you plant your garden so that it is hummingbird friendly; leave enough space between plants to allow the birds enough room to flutter about. Also, do not use pesticides on the flowers in a butterfly garden, as these are harmful to butterflies. Butterflies also enjoy moving water, so set up a gentle sprinkler so that they can take a quick bath.

Butterflies are also attracted to brightly colored flowers. Choose plants that like full sunshine, since butterflies like being in the sun. Some popular flowers include asters, especially the red Wild Romance Asters, which bloom in late summer.

If you want to attract Monarch Butterflies, plant White Dragonflowers. Butterflies, as well as hummingbirds are attracted to the aptly named Butterfly Bush, which are easy to care for.

By Christine A. Smyczynski

School is out and already the kids are starting to say, “I’m bored!” Instead of letting them sit on the couch and play video games all day long, why not try getting them off the couch and outdoors. Not only is the fresh air good for them, moving around is good exercise for them and they won’t be eating pop and chips if they are doing something active.
Here are six suggestions on getting your kids interested in the great outdoors.

1. Set up a bird feeder. If you don’t have a pet, this may be one way to introduce them to the responsibility of caring for and feeding animals. First decide what type of bird you’d like to attract, then pick the appropriate feeder. Keep in mind that if you want to attract a bird that feeds on nectar, such as a hummingbird of oriole, those feeders require more care and maintenance than a seed feeder. Visit USA Bird Supply at 11163 Main Street in Clarence to pick out a feeder, or look at their website at http://www.usabirdsupply.com.

2. Get some books on birding. Once you have the feeder in place, be sure to get a book on birding, so that the kids can identify what birds are coming into you yard. USA Bird Supply also carries a large selection of bird-related books.

3. Plant a garden. Plant flowers, vegetables, or even both. Kids are fascinated with how a tiny dried up seed can turn into a huge plant. Give them chores, like watering the plants, weeding, picking the harvest, etc. to teach them responsibility. Certain flowers attract birds and butterflies, while planting vegetables lets you have fresh produce all season.

4. Visit a nature center. We have numerous nature centers and park interpretive programs available to us in Western New York. Many of these places offer special children’s programs during the summer months. To see a list of the many nature centers and other green space in the area, follow this link http://explorewny.web.officelive.com/greenspace.aspx.

5. Have them catch and release insects. Kids can learn a lot about nature by studying insects. Have them catch bugs in an old glass jar (with air holes in the lid). You can also find kits to do this in many toy stores and through catalogs that sell educational toys.

6. Make crafts from nature. Get a start on Christmas gifts and have your kids craft items such as ornaments from pinecones, paperweights from rocks, and pictures using leaves, twigs and other items found in nature.