Unlike James Taylor, I will soon be going to California not only in my mind but in an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737. As I’ll be there for a week to attend to some business for Celestron in Los Angeles and to speak at the San Diego Bird Festival, in keeping with my preferred practice of taking along a book or two with relevance to my destination, I’m planning to pack copies of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of California by Alvaro Jaramillo and the recently published third edition of Insects of the L.A. Basin by Charles L. Hogue and James N. Hogue in my shoulder bag.
Between Madrona Marsh in Torrance – one of the last remaining vernal freshwater marshes in Los Angeles County – and the Mission Bay area in San Diego, as well as other locations of chance in between, I should have ample opportunities to put both of these two guidebooks to the test. Who knows – with luck I might even find the time to pop in to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, publisher of the insect guide, to see what information about the subject they have on exhibit.
