Tracking the Evolution of the 3rd Edition
of the National Geographic Society's
Field Guide to the Birds of North America
By Fred Bouchard

In the interest of birders curious for a behind-the-scenes look at how the NGS Field Guide, 3rd Edition was put together, individual phone interviews were conducted with the principal consultants in the effort: chief consultant Jon Dunn (at home in Ohio between avian excursions far and wide), art and general consultant Jonathan Alderfer (at home in Washington, D.C.), and chief map consultant Paul Lehman (at home in Cape May, New Jersey via email). The following is the somewhat edited text of those interviews.

Interviews:
[ Jon Dunn | Jonathan Alderfer | Paul Lehman ]

TVB: Why and how did National Geographic get involved in producing the first edition in 1983?

Dunn: National Geographic's two bird books (one on song and garden birds, the other on water, prey, and gamebirds) were out of print and they decided to come up with a new bird book series -- guide book, LPs, and a coffee table book.

TVB: How did you come to be involved in the enterprise?

Dunn: When Claudia Wilds was hired for the field guide, she talked to at least a dozen people across North America. She and I spent a day or two in Southern California discussing difficult bird identifications. When she later had a falling out with production and resigned, she recommended me. I took over in the fall of 1980, and worked with Shirley Scott, editor of the First and Second Editions.

TVB: We see substantial taxonomic shifts in the ordering of the guide: raptors precede shorebirds. Your reasoning?

Dunn: The First Edition did not follow AOU, but rather intended to clump the work of the various artists. This did not work well, because there were so many changes. When Don Malick was diagnosed with cancer, for example, he took no more assignments. We realized we should have followed taxonomic sequence from the get-go, but by then it was too late. The Second Edition gave us a chance to modify all the text and make some art work changes (a few new plates and some corrections). The Second Edition appeared so soon after the first (1987) because NGS still had the plates; they were returned to the artists after that edition came out. For the Third Edition, we followed taxonomic sequence, keeping the AOU checklist in mind more closely, though the vultures are still with the raptors rather than storks.

TVB: Is the order of birds within groups determined by size and scale?

Dunn: And species proximity. Two new loon plates group Common and Yellow-Billed; they also reflect improved renderings of comparative plumages, as well as advances in identifying Arctic and Pacific. We still tried to stick to taxonomic order where practical.

TVB: Were species text changes your decision? What was the process?

Dunn: Texts had to be more concise in most cases as more species were shown. I wrote the drafts for 80 new accounts (99 including splits), Catherine Howell polished them, and Mary Dickenson edited them. For the rewritten accounts, I had free wheel except for space. I marked up changes, deleted irrelevancies (meadowlarks were so complicated I just rewrote it) and Mary polished them.

TVB: I imagine you had some serious deadlines.

Dunn: People must understand the constraints. The book was done in such a rush that I went around to meet with the artists as they completed their drafts. We ran out of time and money. I worked on this project for only eight months! Paul only started his maps last December [five months into the project]. We begged NGS for another year, but they overruled us.

TVB: What specific parts are you proudest of?

I'm happy with all of the plates, the new figures mostly blend well into the old plates. The Empids plate is a huge improvement, as are the loons, and the seven new shorebird plates (such as dowitchers, golden-plovers). Boobies and the albatross are now much more accurately painted with more plumages shown. Michael O'Brien's Atlantic Pterodroma (p. 33) are excellent. John Schmidt did a superb job on raptors. Tom Schultz did his usual exacting and meticulous work on the Catharus (thrushes, p. 349). Tom also did new gull plates and other figures (such as Stripe-Headed Tanagers). David Quinn, a British artist, did the new loon plates and inserted many new European species -- very, very nice work.

TVB: What sections do you think still need improvement?

Dunn: David Quinn was so swamped he simply could not schedule a new godwit plate. Chickadees could use a re-do.

TVB: Were there any missed deadlines due to late-splitting species?

Dunn: No, we worked entirely from the 1998 checklist. We covered the geographic variation within the Spotted and Eastern Towhees where there could be further splits down the road.

TVB: A sense of the evolving sophistication of America's birding community shows in your detailed introduction and technical write-ups. Was this a conscious consideration?

Dunn: Learning Latin is no harder than learning English names. If you explain something, you can bring your audience along. I'm not one for dumbing down to the beginning birder. My former co-chief Eirik Blom also read through the text. The introduction, written by Catherine Howell, is a step towards communicating more effectively with birders by talking to exact feather groups (coverts, scapulars), sub-species details, population density, plumage variations, topographical analysis (tail feather patterns, mandible coloration). It also discusses conservation and behavior.

TVB: It took four years for the Second Edition, and twelve more for the Third. Given the current birding explosion, can we sooner look forward to the Fourth Edition?

Dunn: I suppose -- perhaps a decade down the road. It's up to NGS, whose personnel is entirely different since I worked on the Second Edition in 1986.

Interviews:
[ Jon Dunn | Jonathan Alderfer | Paul Lehman ]