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

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

TVB: Many plates show readily discernible improvements. New flycatcher plates show great detail, subtle color variation, insets of the undersides of mandibles.

Alderfer: Yes, we felt that subtleties had been missing from these flycatchers. Empids are a real field challenge and the new plates offer the first accurate art work usable for their identification.

TVB: How did you decide which plates would be replaced?

Alderfer: Basically it was a decision between Jon Dunn and myself. We went through the book and tried to figure out where there were the most mistakes and where we didn't like shapes and plumage details. The other variable was where there was more information that needed to be added. Of course the caveat with that is Natianal Geographic had a very tight art budget so we knew we only had 35 new plates to choose from.

TVB: Can you describe some interesting plate changes based on improved ID knowledge?

Alderfer: Well, I think it's all through the guide. I painted some of the plates so I know the ones I painted the best. There's a lot of new information, for instance, on golden-plovers. Of course there is the recent split between American and Pacific Golden-Plovers. But, in addition, now you can accurately compare such details as primary projection and the plumages of breeding females.

The other plate that I painted with a lot of additional information was the boobies where we now show many more plumages. Particularly with the Red-footed Booby which has numerous morphs that weren't illustrated before.

But I think it's true through out. The Empidonax, the orioles, Glossy and White-faced Ibises, come to mind, and the meadowlarks where we illustrate the full range of subspecies. Even introduced birds are more fully covered. For instance, John Schmitt's two new parrot plates will help birders sort out many of these species for the first time.

TVB: Plates reused from the 2nd edition, that had been blurry, are now crystal clear. Is that due to printing techniques?

Alderfer: Absolutely! We gained significant sharpness. I was initially worried that we did not have the original artwork from the Second Edition, only transparencies, thus losing a 'generation'. But one role for our art director, NGS's Lyle Rosbotham, was to convert the old plates to digital files. When we did that, we could make hundreds of corrections to the images, based on photo research. Look at that kite pages! Compare the White-tailed Kite's eyes: it's now the right color. The Snail Kite's foot color and cere are also corrected. These kinds of digital corrections were made throughout the book.

TVB: Color accuracy has been improved in many cases. Canada Geese are now brown not grey.

Alderfer: And the Selasphorus Hummingbirds had been too red.

TVB: How were the artists chosen for particular species or plates?

Alderfer: There aren't that many people that really do this work well. Jon and I, having worked in this field for a while, pretty much knew everybody. There were a couple people that we were thinking about who just didn't have the time. We had about 8 months to do the entire project from the time we got the go ahead until the time we had to have everything in to the publisher.

I think we had a great group. We got the people that I really wanted. On the spur of the moment I called Killian Mullarney in Ireland and David Quinn in the England and they were available to do a few plates each, which really helped. David Quinn repainted the old world flycatchers and thrushes. He knows these birds quite well and I was really pleased we could get him. He and Killian are among the best European bird painters.

TVB: How were the assignments given to the artists?

As to the plumages needed to be shown, Jon and I worked this out. We made a checklist of plumages, then we gave that to the artist and said "These are the plumages we want to see, you come up with the design for the plate." They would submit a design to myself and Lyle Rosbotham (the art director at the NGS) and Jon, and we would suggest changes. Sometimes there were no changes, sometimes there were substantial redesigns.

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