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Sierra Birds: A Hiker’s Guide

John Muir Laws

Trade Paper, ISBN: 1-890771-78-3, $9.95
64 pages (4.75 x 8.75), with full-color illustrations throughout

Published in conjunction with the California Academy of Sciences.

As a naturalist managing the field studies program at the California Academy of Sciences, John Muir Laws noticed that novice birders often distinguish birds by color and size rather than species. This inspired him to create Sierra Birds: A Hiker’s Guide, a unique book that assumes no prior birding knowledge on the part of the reader and is organized for easy and quick reference. Color-coded keys eliminate the time-consuming frustration of thumbing randomly through a guide, hoping to stumble upon the right species…before it disappears! A cross-index is also included for more advanced birders. All this in a format that is simply organized, lightweight, and small enough to tuck inside a pocket.

A first-rate naturalist, John Muir Laws is also an accomplished artist. His illustrations are lively, colorful, and accurate, and drawn to represent species in the manner in which one generally sees them in the field. The blue-gray gnatcatcher staring at the reader is not just an artistic fancy: this is indeed how the bird behaves.

Part of a larger project forthcoming from Heyday Books and the California Academy of Sciences that will catalog the flora and fauna of the Sierra Nevada, Sierra Birds is a stand-alone guidebook that will be celebrated by beginning and experienced birders alike.

Reviews:

"[Sierra Birds is] heavyweight among Sierra Nevada natural history guides and packed with great information. The concept of creating a hiker-friendly field guide stripped to the bare essentials is brilliant and executed to perfection."—California Wild

About the Author:

John Muir Laws is a naturalist, artist, and educator with the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. He has taught classes on ecology, biology, and illustration. He received a B.S. in conservation and resource studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.S. in wildlife biology from the University of Montana, Missoula, and he studied science illustration at the University of California, Santa Cruz.