The Naturalist’s Illustrated Guide to the Sierra Foothills and Central Valley by Derek Madden

A model nature guide with beautiful art

I’ve never been to the Sierra Foothills nor the Central Valley of California, and there’s a good chance I may never go there. Like many people who enjoy the outdoors, however, I fancy myself an amateur naturalist, and I enjoy reading books about nature. The Naturalist’s Illustrated Guide to the Sierra Foothills and Central Valley was published in 2005, first under the title of Magpies and Mayflies, and then reissued under its present title in 2020. I bought this book for two reasons, 1) because it was a Kindle Daily Deal, so why not? and 2) I just love the illustrations. The art is by Derek Madden, a professor of biology at Modesto Junior College. Madden is also the primary author of the book, with help from Ken Charters and Erinn Madden. Although the art is in black and white, Madden’s depictions of plants and animals go way beyond the diagrammatic line drawings you typically see in such nature guides. These are really some gallery-worthy drawings. As a nature-inspired artist myself, I like having Madden’s work as a stylistic reference for how natural illustration should be done.

Enough about the pictures; how about the text? The book is divided into categorical chapters, starting with plants and fungi, then covering animals under the headings of invertebrates, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. This is not so much a field guide that one would use for identifying species in the wild. Although it could serve that purpose to some extent, if that’s your main concern then you’d be better off getting a guide with color photographs. Madden doesn’t cover every species in this geographical area, and in some cases, such as insects, he only discusses wildlife at the family level, not the species level. What Madden tries doing with this book, however, and he succeeds quite admirably, is to explain the life cycles and behaviors of these living things and how they fit together within the Sierra Foothills and Central Valley ecosystem. Although I don’t live in California, many of these same species, or at least their families, reside in Kansas, where I live, so much of the information in this guide is relevant to me and other nature lovers who live elsewhere in North America. 

One criticism of the book, and it’s a small one, is that Madden, being a biologist, only covers living things. I’ve always thought of the term “naturalist” as being someone who studies nature in its totality, including nonbiological natural processes such as geology, hydrology, and meteorology. Naturalists like Darwin, Humboldt, and Thoreau certainly broadened the scope of their writings to include such topics. Definitions of natural history vary, however, some including geology and habitat studies, some not, so maybe my quibbling is unreasonable.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and learned quite a bit from it. It’s really a model of how such regional natural histories (not full-color field guides) should be done, and the stunning art by Madden is a bonus. I wish I had an all-encompassing one-volume guide like this for the area in which I live. If you reside in California or frequently visit the region in question, all the better for you.