First Field Guides

When I was six and seven, my dad worked at a summer camp in Maine. Those two summers our whole family lived at the camp which was magical for a kid that age.

I was too young (and the wrong gender) to be a camper but I had what felt like free rein across the camp. I tagged along to activities and even some field trips, including my first early morning birding trip (most likely where my love for Popham Beach started).

And I entered every nature corner challenge they put out for the campers. These where a mix for things like animal bones, owl pellets, track castings, galls, bird feathers, and more intended to inspire curiosity about nature. My recollection is that I had the most right answers every camp session. But since I wasn't a camper the staff faced a bit of a conundrum on what to do. So they gave me my own copies of Peterson's First Guides as what I think they imagined was a consolation prize.

To my six and seven year old self, those Guides were like gold though. I still have them more than 35 years later. I read them over and over, cover to cover, and yet they are still in surprisingly good shape. I've passed them to my own children now and hope the hold the same inspiration for them going forward.