{"id":3078,"date":"2014-11-05T15:28:45","date_gmt":"2014-11-05T15:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/?p=3078"},"modified":"2020-06-17T17:14:40","modified_gmt":"2020-06-17T17:14:40","slug":"roger-tory-peterson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/?p=3078","title":{"rendered":"Roger Tory Peterson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When you or I think of field guides, we most likely think of Peterson Field Guides. Roger Tory Peterson, the author of the series, became a birder as a child, and after years of watching and studying birds, he set out to create his own practical guide to bird identification that could be used in the field. His book <i>Guide to the Birds <\/i>was published in 1934 and was the first modern field guide.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/PETERSON.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-3090\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/PETERSON-748x1024.jpg\" alt=\"PETERSON\" width=\"714\" height=\"977\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/PETERSON-748x1024.jpg 748w, https:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/PETERSON-219x300.jpg 219w, https:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/PETERSON.jpg 1346w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 714px) 100vw, 714px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>His goal was to create a handbook with which &#8220;live birds can be run down by impressions, pattern, and distinctive marks, rather than by the anatomical differences and measurements that a collector would find useful.&#8221; The book was small, only about 7.5 inches by 5 and two hundred pages long, perfect for slipping into a back pocket or knapsack. The first run sold out in a week at $2.75 a copy. It has been in print ever since.<\/p>\n<p>An entire field guide series based on the original was developed, encompassing everything from fish to the night sky. The Peterson Identification System, a feature of the series, is his practical visual method for identifying animals, plants, etc. The system is based on the idea that modern birders wanted a way to identify live birds at a distance, rather than from characteristics observed on a dead specimen, as early collectors\u00a0used. Modern birders, often amateurs, were able to take advantage of new binoculars and scopes to see live animals from a distance, and his identification system was developed with this new kind of relationship to nature in mind. The system focuses on representative &#8220;field marks&#8221; that characterize each species.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/head-shots.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-3088\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/head-shots-1024x776.jpg\" alt=\"head shots\" width=\"714\" height=\"541\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/head-shots-1024x776.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/head-shots-300x227.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 714px) 100vw, 714px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Today he is considered one of the leading inspirations for the modern environmental movement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"excerpt\">When you or I think of field guides, we most likely think of Peterson Field Guides. Roger Tory Peterson, the author of the series, became a birder as a child, and after years of watching and studying birds, he set out to create his own practical guide to bird identification that could be used in the field. His book Guide&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/?p=3078\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3080,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[144],"tags":[18,21,110,153],"class_list":["post-3078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","tag-birding","tag-field-guides","tag-history-of-field-guides","tag-roger-tory-peterson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3078"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3091,"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3078\/revisions\/3091"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}