Collins Gem Food For Free by Richard Mabey
Collins Gem Trees
Not complete in my opinion, but small and great to start off with
Collins Gem Trees
Not complete in my opinion, but small and great to start off with
The best thing I have (no joke) is a pocket sized digital camera with good macro facilities and a ruler. Using the ruler for scale I can take loads of pictures of animals, trees, fungi, tracks, plants, birds and identify them when I get home. If I go out to look at plants, I see birds. If its birds I spot an interesting tree.
I just can't carry them all and, to be honest, I don't want to plan to only observe one thing.
So, I take the camera, record, and look it up when I get home. I then file the photos by name.
You would be amazed how many times I have struggled to identify something, then found I had done so a couple of years before. The third time its usually "I've seen that before" and I look it up in my own pictures. Very rewarding that way. The dates on photos are handy for seasonality too.
Its an updated version of the old explorers sketchbook idea I suppose. There is nothing new after all
Red
I don't carry any books into the field -- I teach foraging locally so it should be in my head. But my "plant" library has about 50 books in it, including material by Ray Mears. We have a lot of plants in common plus some techniques are transferable. When I find a plant of interest I take pictures of it and then go do the homework.
The problem here is most foraging books are for the central northern states. Regional ones are lacking or poor, though there is an excellent one for the Great Lakes area.
I recently bought the Hamlyn Guide to Edible and Medicinal Plants of Great Britain and Northern Europe ; launert, ISBN 978-0600352815 . It is 30 years old out of print, and cost me £20 from amazon, the information in it is unparralled and it is in the lay out of field guide. Excellent book but i wouldn't bring it out side. I tend to mark the margin of my usual field guide with edibility symbols.