Winners of the Guidebooks (Nature)Category
National Outdoor Book Awards (NOBA)
The most important book award program in the outdoor field is the National Outdoor Book Awards. Past winners of the Nature Guidebook Category are listed below:
Winner. Birds of Peru. By Tomas S. Schulenberg, Douglas F. Stotz, Daniel F. Lane, John P. O'Neill, and Theodore A. Parker III. Princeton University Press, Princeton. ISBN 9780691049151.
A famous American field ornithologist once remarked that a bird watching trip to Peru was akin to a child's visit to an enormous toy store -- and with good reason. Peru is home to nearly one-fifth of the world's total number of bird species. There's no better way to explore the wonders of Peru's ornithological toy store than with this colorful, well-organized and comprehensive guidebook. In all, it covers an amazing 1,792 species. It is, quite simply, an impressive work of monumental ornithological significance
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
Winner. Birds of Northern South America: An Identification Guide. By Robin Restall, Clemencia Rodner and Miguel Lentino. Yale University Press, New Haven and A & C Black, London. ISBN 9780300108620.
This remarkable work consists of two volumes: the first with written descriptions of the birds, and the second with color plates portraying over 2,300 species in almost every distinct plumage. Quite simply, Birds of Northern South America is a tour de force.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
Winner: Canoe Country Flora By Mark Stensaas, illustrated by Jeff Sonstegard, published by Pfeifer-Hamilton.
Canoe Country Flora covers a choice selection of trees, shrubs and wildflowers in the broad swath of territory extending from Northern Minnesota to Maine. The author has fun with the book, taking a different tact than most identification guides. He describes how to identify plants, of course, but he does so in a light, pleasant style and supplements the text with a fascinating study of plants' natural and cultural histories.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
Winner: A Field Guide to Snakes of Florida By Alan Tennant. Published by Gulf Publishing Company.
Longtime herpetologist Alan Tennant skillfully combines scientific data with straightforward comments and observations to make this book an invaluable resource tool for identifying and appreciating Florida's remarkable snake population. A well crafted and organized guidebook, it has understandable text and crisp, easy-to-use color photographs of every snake described in the book.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
Honorable Mention: Colorado Nature Almanac
By Stephen R. Jones and Ruth Carol Cushman. Published by Pruett Publishing Company.
Wonderfully readable and well-researched, this is a month-to-month guide to the rhythms of nature in Colorado. It includes wildflower blooming charts, bird arrival times, a naturalist's where-to-go directory, and entertaining facts about the state's flora and fauna.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
Winner: Scats and Tracks of the Rocky Mountains: A Field Guide to the Signs of 70 Wildlife Species
By James Halfpenny, Ph.D. Illustrated by Todd Telander and Designed by Dana Kim-Wincapaw. Published by Falcon Publishing.
In this book, conveniently sized to fit in the back pocket, nationally renowned tracker, Dr. James Halfpenny helps decipher the signs left behind by mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. The 145-page guide is a real bargain and includes clear and understandable drawings and concise descriptions of the scats, tracks and gait patterns of 70 Rocky Mountain species.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
Winner: Guide to Marine Mammals & Turtles of the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico By Kate Wynne and Malia Schwartz.
Illustrated by Garth Mix.
Published by Rhode Island Sea Grant, University of Rhode Island
This is an extraordinarily well done and easy-to-use guidebook that will help you identify marine mammals while traveling the coastal waters of the east. Printed on water-resistant paper, it covers whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals, manatee and turtles. It's truly a model guidebook. Each and every detail has been designed with user convenience in mind, from its organization and lay-out, to its photographs and map graphics, to its carefully researched and understandable writing.
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Winner: Butterflies Through Binoculars: A Field Guide to the Butterflies of Western North America. By Jeffrey Glassberg. Published by Oxford University Press, New York.
This magnificently crafted guidebook is illustrated with vivid color photographs that set a new standard in butterfly identification. It's a guide that can quickly grow on you. In no time, you may find yourself hopelessly hooked--and haunting the fields and forests searching for those delicate insects that add so much color to summer afternoons.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
Also note that there are several other books of this series:
· Butterflies Through Binoculars: East
· Dragonflies Through Binoculars
· Field Guide Set (Including Caterpillars)
Honorable Mention: The Raptor Almanac: A Comprehensive Guide to Eagles, Hawks, Falcons and Vultures. By Scott Weidensaul. Published by The Lyons Press, New York.
A far-reaching reference and guide to raptors, this book is for those bird-watching enthusiasts who want to go beyond the fundamentals. Its contents include raptor evolution, behavior, courtship, nesting, migration, and more.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
Winner. Lichens of North America. By Irwin M. Brodo, Sylvia Duran Sharnoff and Stephen Sharnoff. Published by Yale University Press, New Haven. ISBN 0300082495.
When you spend time in the outdoors you'll see them: rocks with crusty patterned growths of orange and yellow, trees with dangling, wispy dark green beards, and forest floors laid with a soft, creamy, moss-like carpet. They're lichens and this is the book to use to identify them: the first definitive guide to lichens in North America. It's a masterpiece of imagery, text and science. Be prepared: it's comprehensive, nearly 800 pages long, but the authors and publisher have carefully designed it to be useful to all, specialists and novices, alike.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
Honorable Mention. Bird Tracks & Sign: A Guide to North American Species. By Mark Elbroch and Eleanor Marks. Published by Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA. ISBN 0811726967.
Bird Tracks & Sign is an innovative, major new contribution to the study of North American birds and is destined to become an indispensable reference.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
Winner. Mammal Tracks and Sign: A Guide to North American Species. By Mark Elbroch. Published by Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA. ISBN 0811726266
Mammal Tracks and Sign is one of the most thorough and complete guides to animal tracking ever published. Going beyond where other books leave off, it combines text, drawings, maps and more than 1,000 color photos to unravel the mysteries of North American mammal tracks and signs. Mark Elbroch has poured himself into this book, writing the text, taking the photos and preparing the drawings. It's a monumental effort and an invaluable reference for anyone who enjoys tracking and viewing wildlife.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
Honorable Mention. The Rockfishes of the Northeast Pacific. By Milton S. Love, Mary Yoklavich, and Lyman Thorsteinson. Published by University of California Press, Berkeley, CA. ISBN 0520234383
Who says that scientists can't have a little fun? This 400-page, well-illustrated and scrupulously scientific book is a significant contribution to our understanding of the rockfishes. It's also a delight to read.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
Winner. Snakes of the Southeast. By Whit Gibbons and Mike Dorcas. The University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA. ISBN 0820326526
Snakes of the Southeast is an eye-catching new nature guidebook melding good descriptive writing, a dapper design and strikingly crisp photographs. The 52 species of snakes found in the southeast are fully covered: size charts, distribution maps, key identifiers, habitat descriptions. It's all there in one very nicely wrapped package.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
Honorable Mention. Nature's Strongholds: The World's Great Wildlife Reserves. By Laura and William Riley. Princeton University Press, Princeton. ISBN 0691122199
This 672-page tome is a guide to some of the wildest, most wildlife-filled places on earth. It was a massive undertaking, but writers and conservationists, Laura and William Riley were up to the task and brought it off with aplomb.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
Winner. Yellowstone Expedition Guide: The Modern Way to Explore America's Oldest National Park. By Charissa Reid. TravelBrains, Inc., Bedford, NH. ISBN 1933763000
This is a state-of-the-art, technologically savvy guidebook for visitors of Yellowstone National Park. It's packed full of beta, including information on the area's geology, its hydrothermal features, plants, animals, and hiking trails. Topping it off are two included CD's: one is an audio tour which can be played as you visit different parts of the park, and the other contains movies and panoramic photo tours which can be viewed on your computer.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
Winner. Caterpillars of Eastern North America. By David L. Wagner. Princeton University Press, Princeton. ISBN # 0691121443
It's a caterpillar lover's delight: a copiously illustrated guide to the caterpillars of nearly 700 butterflies and moths found east of the Mississippi. Many of the caterpillars included in the volume have never been photographed. The guide is nicely designed and easy to use with clear and crisp photographs of both the larva and adult stages.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
End of Listing