Peterson First Guide to Urban Wildlife

Peterson First Guides

by Sarah B. Landry, Roger Tory Peterson (Editor)

Peterson First Guides are the first books the beginning naturalist needs. Condensed versions of the famous Peterson Field Guides, the First Guides focus on the animals, plants, and other natural things you are most likely to see. They make it fun to get into the field and easy to progress to the full-fledged Peterson Guides.

Genres: Reference

128 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 1998

Reviews

[Octavia Cade · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a good idea but it has a particularly ill-thought-out execution. The basic concept is that this is an introductory primer, a field guide for people who are starting pretty much from zero in identifying the animals (the vast majority of entries here are animals) in their North American surroundings. So far, so good... but note the title, please. It is a guide to urban wildlife. Now, you can certainly find E. coli and bread yeast in cities, but why on Earth are they in a book like this? A significant portion of the book is the opening section on microscopic organisms... is this meant to be a guide for people who carry microscopes and Gram stains around the local park? The other end of the scale is equally ridiculous. I don't know why a humpback whale has been classed as urban wildlife, but I am not buying it. There is just so much here that doesn't seem relevant; it just doesn't do what it says on the tin. Why not get rid of that whole microbial section and add more plants than the 3-4 pages tucked in at the back of the book? Aren't people getting into nature-watching more likely to see trees than amoebas and bacteriophages? Finally, for a basic guide, the information given is absolutely bare bones. A lot of the entries don't even give a range, or a small map of the country where the entry might be found.

It's not completely dire, but it's ridiculously and unhelpfully unfocused.

[Min · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four star for the sheer variety; from the microscopic animals to the humpback whale.
In increasing size the book shares an illustration, and a sentence or two about the most common creatures in the United States.
It is a very slim volume appropriate for a young explorer. I do appreciate the inclusion of the very small-- creatures one will never know they have encountered, as well as, plants and animals.

[Yanick Punter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun guide of urban wildlife.