As one who has long advocated the use of natural history guidebooks that are as locally focused as can reasonably be obtained, I was delighted to be recently made aware of a bird watching guide that takes as its range a single municipality and its surroundings – in this case Pasadena, California.
Published by the Pasadena Audubon Society, the new second edition of the Birding Guide to the Greater Pasadena Area provides a spiral bound, single volume presentation of thirty noteworthy sites in or easily reachable from Pasadena. Each site profile includes a map of the site, directions on how to get there, what paths and trails to take once you arrive, comprehensive accessibility information for each site, and what birds to look for every season of the year.
Although this new edition of the Guide does include helpful material on the natural history of the bird life of the locations cited, and helpful tools such as species seasonality and likelihood charts, it is still a site guide at heart and so an appropriate field guide to the local bird species is also recommended for those exploring the places to which it will guide you. If you don’t already have a favorite, I would recommend All About Birds California from Princeton University Press and Cornell Lab of Ornithology, or the American Birding Association Field Guide to Birds of California by Alvaro Jaramillo and Brian Small. Introduction to California Birdlife (from the California Natural History Guides series) by Jules Evens and Ian Tait is also recommended for those interested in learning more about the birds of California as a whole.
