Scope

Mrs. Sawtell was an amateur bird watcher who kept detailed records on sightings, including the date, location, and conditions at the time of the sighting. These details were recorded as handwritten annotations in the margins of her field identification guides. During the time she owned this book, her primary residences were in southeastern Minnesota, in the cities of Rochester and Wabasha.

This collection captures handwritten annotations excerpted from Mrs. Sawtell’s personal copy of the 1963 edition of A Field Guide to the Birds: Giving Field Marks of all Species Found East of the Rockies, written and illustrated by Roger Tory Peterson and published by Houghton Mifflin Company. The scope of this collection is limited to the section of the book dedicated to birds identified as Flycatchers. This section was selected because of the content of the handwritten marginalia. Because the book was in-hand during outings, some pages show evidence of water damage. There is also evidence of pages being used to press leaves or flowers collected during her travels. Images in this collection are representative of the pages in the remainder of the book. Individual pages in the book are represented as single records in this collection.