Books for local naturalists

Below are reviews of some of the many books about the varied ecosystems of Colorado’s Front Range.

Please send any books that you believe will interest local naturalists with a short review to webmaster@bcna.org. The books listed below are just a sample of those available. The books with cover photos were written by BCNA authors. 

Websites are frequently updated and links to the site change or break. Should you find that a link does not take you to the correct page, you can generally find the relocated or modified page by searching for the link name that is on this webpage.

General References

Benedict, Audrey. 2009. Sierra Club Naturalist’s Guide: the Southern Rockies. University of Arizona Press. A comprehensive, insightful, and evocative guide to ecosystems and their plant and animal populations.

Cushman, Ruth Carol, and Stephen Jones. 2009. Wild Boulder County: A Seasonal Guide to the Natural Year. Pruett Publishing Company, Boulder. This ecology guide tells when and where to observe blooming orchids, nesting eagles and other natural phenomena while describing natural processes in local ecosystems.

Mutel, Cornelia, and John Emerick. 1984. From Grassland to Glacier, the Natural History of Colorado. Johnson Books, Boulder. A straightforward and readable introduction to ecosystems of the Front Range and Colorado.

Birds

Colorado Bird Atlas Partnership. 2016. The Second Colorado Breeding Bird Atlas online database. Colorado Bird Atlas Partnership, Denver, CO. Available at: http://www.cobreedingbirdatlasii.org. This is an update of Kingery, Hugh, ed. 1998. Colorado Breeding Bird Atlas, Colorado Bird Atlas Partnership, Denver. It includes distribution maps, nesting phenology charts, and detailed life histories of all of Colorado’s nesting birds. Stephen R. Jones was a Regional Coordinator, Species Author and Peer Reviewer and BCNA and many of its members are listed as Block Owners.

Gray, Mary Taylor. 2009. The Guide to Colorado Birds. Westcliffe Publishers, Denver.

Kingery, Hugh, ed. 1998. Colorado Breeding Bird Atlas. Colorado Bird Atlas Partnership, Denver. This 630-page hardback reference book includes distribution maps, nesting phenology charts, and detailed life histories of all of Colorado’s nesting birds.

Orleans, Dick, and Scott Rashid. Voices from the Wild. Bird songs of Rocky Mountain National Park. (CD). 50 songs are clearly represented, with no human voiceover, so this is a great CD for those wanting to get started identifying birds by their songs.

Righter, Robert, and Geoffrey Keller. Bird Songs of the Rocky Mountain States and Provinces. (CD). Clearly recorded songs of all species that nest in the Rocky Mountains.

Sibley, David Allen. 2003. The Sibley Field guide to Birds of Western North America. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. Among the more lightweight and clearly illustrated of the standard North American field guides.

Wheeler, Brian K. 2003. Raptors of Western North America: the Wheeler Guides. Contains striking photos and illustrations, along with detailed descriptions of field marks, ecology, and behavior.

Gelhorn, Joyce and Calvin Whitehall. 2007. White-Tailed Ptarmigan: Ghosts of the Alpine Tundra. Johnson Books. A month-by-month photographic essay of the ptarmigan.

Participants in the BCNA bird song field class. Dawn Chorus in the Colorado Rockies. CD. Includes recordings of songs of more than 50 breeding bird species from eight Boulder County ecosystems, from the plains to the alpine tundra. The CD contains no narration to disrupt the beauty of the natural sounds, but includes an 8-page “libretto” which identifies each song as it appears. Made with a Telinga Professional parabolic microphone, the recordings bring out the richness and complexity of the songs. $11. Available at Wild Bird Centers throughout the Denver-Boulder area.  

Mammals

Armstrong, David. 2009. Rocky Mountain Mammals: A Handbook of Mammals of Rocky Mountain National Park in the Vicinity. University Press of Colorado, Boulder. An informative and clearly written guide to mammals of the Front Range, from the foothills to the Alpine.

Fitzgerald, James, Carron Meaney, and David Armstrong. 1994. Mammals of Colorado, University Press of Colorado, Boulder. This complete guide to Colorado mammals includes photos, range maps, and comprehensive life histories for all documented species.  

Butterflies, Dragonflies, and Insects of the Front Range

Brock, Jim, and Kenn Kaufman. 2003. Butterflies of North America. Species illustrations, descriptions, and range maps are all placed on fronting pages, making this guidebook very easy to use in the field.

Dunkle, Sydney. 2000. Dragonflies through Binoculars: A Field Guide to Dragonflies of North America. Oxford University Press. Includes photos and detailed field descriptions of all species documented in North America, and by extension, Boulder County.

Glassberg, Jeffrey. 2001.  Butterflies through Binoculars: The West A Field Guide to the Butterflies of Western North America. Oxford University Press. Comprehensive field guide to western North America.

Opler, Paul, and Amy Bartlett Wright. 1999. A Field Guide to Western Butterflies, Peterson Field Guide Series. Houghton Mifflin, Boston. Very comprehensive, with illustrations, photos.

The brand-new second edition of Butterflies of the Colorado Front Range: A Photographic Guide to 100 Species by Janet R. Chu and Stephen R. Jones is now available in both print and eBook formats! The print book sells for $15 through Front Range outlets (see the Publications tab above) and from Amazon. The eBook is available for $5.99 from Amazon, Apple Books, kobo.com and barnesandnoble.com.

Monroe, Lynn and Gene, and Pam Piombino. 2021. Insects & Kin of the Colorado Front Range. Written for nature enthusiasts of all ages, citizen scientists and the scientific community, this book is a photographic and natural history field survey of over 29 years of the insects and other arthropods of the Colorado Front Range. Included are1,224 insect species and 42 other arthropod species such as spiders. There are a total of 2,557 color photographs taken in the wild with just a few exceptions. The summary of this survey on page 1025 shows a total of 1,266 arthropod species in 751 genera, 182 families and 24 orders. Detailed ordering information is at the bottom of this page.

Plants

Beidleman, Linda, Richard Beidleman, and Beatrice Willard. 2000. Plants of Rocky Mountain National Park. Rocky Mountain Nature Association and Falcon Publishing, Helena, Montana. Contains photos and descriptions of nearly 300 species found in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Johnson, James, and Gary Larson. 1999. Grassland Plants of South Dakota and the Northern Great Plains. South Dakota State University, Brookings. Though focused on a different part of the country, this is the best general guide we have found to grasses and wildflowers of eastern Colorado shortgrass and mixed-grass prairies.

Weber, William. 2001. Colorado Flora, Eastern Slope. University Press of Colorado, Boulder. This is the definitive guide to eastern slope flora, and the only one that includes comprehensive keys to all documented species.

Willard, Bettie E. and Michael T. Smithson.  Alpine Wildflowers of the Rocky Mountains.  Rocky Mountain Nature Association, Estes Park, CO. A photographic pocket guide to alpine wildflowers.

Wingate, Janet L.  1994.  Illustrated Key to the Grasses of Colorado.  Wingate Consulting, Denver, CO.  Combined with Johnson and Larson (above), this book will enable you to identify from photos or key out several dozen common grasses.

Ecosystems

Cushman, Ruth Carol and Stephen R. Jones. 2004. Peterson Field Guides: The North American Prairie. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. A guide to the prairie preserves found in 18 states and Canada.

Jones, Stephen R. 2000. The Last Prairie: A Sandhills Journal. A description of Jones’ travels throughout the Sandhills of Nebraska that blends science, natural history, ethnography and memoir.

Gellhorn, Joyce.  2002.  Song of the Alpine.  Johnson Books, Boulder, CO. A lyrical and fact-filled introduction to Boulder County’s most celebrated ecosystem.

Please take some time to look through the website to learn about BCNA and our activities. If you are not yet on the Nature-Net email list, you will find this a good source of local, timely information and interesting tidbits for those interested in the natural world and the humans that impact it.