Ian Paulsen wonders what books we started with. As a kid back in Minneapolis, I had a Book of Birds, by Lewis H. Mills and Gertrude C. Hawkins, a wonderful little children's book published in 1937, with paintings by Walter A. Weber, one of the fine artists of the time. It helped me learn Robins, Baltimore Orioles, Red-headed Woodpeckers, Blue Jays, and some others. One year we had a pair of Cardinals nesting in the huge grape vine along one side of our yard, and the next year they were replaced by a pair of Brown Thrashers; I must had books that helped me identify some of these birds. During this time, in the 1940s, Whitman Publishing Company, of Racine, Wisconsin, published a long series of little books, all about 5-1/2 x 3-1/2 inches, on many subjects, and it included four books about birds--informative, but not very useful for identifying them. Then around 1950 I acquired my first serious book, the great Audubon Bird Guide by Richard Pough, illustrated so beautifully by Don Eckelberry; it took me a while to realize that the book only covered land birds, so I had no way to identify ducks, herons, etc. Then someone asked me if I had Peterson guide, and I learned what I really needed to become a serious birder, at least in the East and Midwest.

Burt Guttman
The Evergreen State College
Olympia, WA 98505 guttmanb at evergreen.edu
Home: 7334 Holmes Island Road S. E., Olympia, 98503