Download or read book The Life History of a Texas Birdwatcher written by Karen Harden McCracken and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In any other context, saying that someone was "for the birds" would hardly be polite. But applied to Connie Hagar, it would be high praise. The diminutive birdwatcher nicknamed Connie was reared as Martha Conger Neblett in early twentieth-century Texas, where she led a genteel life of tea parties and music lessons. But at middle age she became fascinated with birds and resolved to learn everything she could about them. In 1935, she and her husband, Jack, moved to Rockport, on the Coastal Bend of Texas, to be at the center of one of the most abundant areas of bird life in the country. Her diligence in observation soon had her setting elite East Coast ornithologists on their ears, as she sighted more and more species the experts claimed she could not possibly have seen. (Repeatedly she proved them wrong.) She ultimately earned the respect and love of birders from the shores of New Jersey to the islands of the Pacific. Life Magazine pictured her in a tribute to the country's premier amateur naturalists, and she received many awards from nature and birding societies. Connie Hagar's life history is more than just a bird book. Hers is a story of dedication to nature and the role she could play in promoting it to others, despite recurring threats of blindness and other health problems. The hundreds of species of birds that visited Rockport each year brought thousands of other birders, and Connie patiently hosted and assisted both the greenest beginners and the most magisterial experts. It was she, more than any other person, who made coastal Texas--and especially Rockport--a mecca for all serious birders. Karen Harden McCracken and Connie Hagar's Boswellian-Johnsonian relationship in the 1960s, Connie's own "Nature Calendars" containing thirty-five years of observations, and interviews with those who knew the "birdwoman of Rockport" provide the basis for this simple but exhilarating narrative.
Download or read book Connie Hagar written by Karen Harden McCracken and published by Texas A & M University Press. This book was released on 1988-08 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Great Texas Birds written by John P. O'Neill and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents color reproductions of forty-eight Texas birds selected as the personal favorites of illustrator John O'Neill and editor Suzanne Winckler, each accompanied by a personal, scientific, or literary observation by a well-known Texas birder or nature writer.
Download or read book Birds of Texas written by Tim Ohr and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: General account and specific life-history information for nearly 400 birds found in Texas.
Download or read book Book of Texas Birds written by Gary Clark and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-07 with total page 762 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on the knowledge and insight gained from a lifetime of watching, studying, and enjoying birds, this book is full of information about more than four hundred species of birds in Texas, most all of which author Gary Clark has seen first hand. Organized in the standard taxonomic order familiar to most birders, the book is written in a conversational tone that yields a wide-ranging discussion of each bird’s life history as well as an intimate look at some of its special characteristics and habits. Information regarding each species’ diet, voice, and nest is included as well as when and where it can be found in Texas. Magnificent photographs by Kathy Adams Clark accompany each bird’s entry. For those just beginning to watch birds to those who can fully relate to the experiences and sentiments communicated here by a veteran birder, this book reveals the kind of personal connection to nature that careful attention to the birds around us can inspire.
Download or read book A Haven in the Sun written by B. C. Robison and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the Texas coast told through the bird species that inhabit it.
Download or read book The Story of the Rockport Fulton Art Colony written by Kay Kronke Betz and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-24 with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Coastal Living Magazine listed Rockport, Texas, among its “Top 10 Coastal Artists’ Colonies” with more well-known art communities such as Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, and Monhegan Island, Maine, many art lovers may have been surprised. But Rockport’s inclusion represented an emerging Texas Gulf Coast aesthetic and regional school of landscape art that many art historians and collectors had discovered. The area’s unique ecosystem, abundance of wildlife and quaint architecture of bait stands and fish houses became a haven for creativity and individuality, beginning in the late forties. Over the years, it became home to influential artists, including the colony founder, Simon Michael, his most famous student, Dalhart Windberg, Jack Cowan, Al Barnes, Herb Booth, and Jesus Moroles. Other prominent artists also came for inspiration, including Buck Schiwetz, Harold Phenix, and Kent Ullberg. Many of the artists were active in early environmental organizations like the Coastal Conservation Association and Ducks Unlimited, working to protect the special habitats. And Steve Russell, a Rockport native, became the legendary mentor and quintessential artist of the colony, inspiring generations of newcomers. In The Story of the Rockport-Fulton Art Colony: How a Coastal Texas Town Became an Art Enclave, Kay Kronke Betz and Vickie Moon Merchant chronicle how this small Texas town, whose economy was based on fishing, shrimping, and tourism, became a major regional center for the visual arts. Generously illustrated throughout with full-color images of boats, bays, and other hallmarks of this artistically rich community, this book is a visual and narrative treat for art lovers, conservationists, and historians alike.
Download or read book The Bird Life of Texas written by Harry Church Oberholser and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 602 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is to give a detailed history of natural history of all the species and subspecies of indigenous birds which have occurred within the confines of the present (1973) state of Texas from the date of the first recorded bird observation in late summer of 1535 through the winter season of 1972-73.
Download or read book Exploring the Edges of Texas written by Isabel Davis and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ultimate road trip, celebrating the remarkable history, natural history and diversity of the Lone Star State.~Robert McCracken Peck, The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.
Download or read book The Ruby throated Hummingbird written by June Osborne and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-07-22 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this invitingly-written book, June Osborne paints a fully detailed portrait of perhaps the best-known hummingbird in the United States, the ruby-throat. There is no mistaking a hummingbird. Even people who hardly know a robin from a sparrow recognize that flash of iridescent feathers and the distinctive hovering flight. So popular have “hummers” become that even casual birdwatchers now travel great distances to hummingbird hot spots to see masses of birds in their annual migrations. Drawing from her own birdwatching experiences, June Osborne offers an “up close and personal” look at a female ruby-throat building her nest and rearing young, as well as an account of a day in the life of a male ruby-throat and stories of the hummers’ migrations between their summer breeding grounds in the United States and Canada and their winter homes in Mexico and Central America. In addition to this life history, Osborne recounts early hummingbird sightings and tells how the bird received its common and scientific names. After an overview of hummingbirds’ distinctive ways of feeding, flying, and conserving energy, she offers a detailed description of the ruby-throat that will help you tell females from males, immature birds from adults, and ruby-throats from similar species. Osborne also takes you on a visit to the “Hummer/Bird Celebration!” at Rockport, reviews hummingbird banding programs, and explains how to attract hummingbirds to your yard or apartment balcony.
Download or read book In the Field Among the Feathered written by Thomas R. Dunlap and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-12-14 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America is a nation of ardent, knowledgeable birdwatchers. But how did it become so? And what role did the field guide play in our passion for spotting, watching, and describing birds? In the Field, Among the Feathered tells the history of field guides to birds in America from the Victorian era to the present, relating changes in the guides to shifts in science, the craft of field identification, and new technologies for the mass reproduction of images. Drawing on his experience as a passionate birder and on a wealth of archival research, Thomas Dunlap shows how the twin pursuits of recreation and conservation have inspired birders and how field guides have served as the preferred method of informal education about nature for well over a century. The book begins with the first generation of late 19th-century birdwatchers who built the hobby when opera glasses were often the best available optics and bird identification was sketchy at best. As America became increasingly urban, birding became more attractive, and with Roger Tory Peterson's first field guide in 1934, birding grew in both popularity and accuracy. By the 1960s recreational birders were attaining new levels of expertise, even as the environmental movement made birding's other pole, conservation, a matter of human health and planetary survival. Dunlap concludes by showing how recreation and conservation have reached a new balance in the last 40 years, as scientists have increasingly turned to amateurs, whose expertise had been honed by the new guides, to gather the data they need to support habitat preservation. Putting nature lovers and citizen-activists at the heart of his work, Thomas Dunlap offers an entertaining history of America's long-standing love affair with birds, and with the books that have guided and informed their enthusiasm.
Download or read book Birdwatcher written by Elizabeth Rosenthal and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2010-03-23 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: [2015 Reprint] Roger Tory Peterson—the Renaissance man who taught Americans the joy of watching birds—also invented the modern field guide. His 1934 landmark Field Guide to the Birds was the first book designed to go outdoors and help people identify the elements of nature. This self-proclaimed “student of nature” combined spectacular writing with detailed illustrations to ultimately publish many other books, winning every possible award and medal for natural science, ornithology, and conservation. Birdwatcher is a comprehensive, illustrated biography of Roger Tory Peterson--a hero in the conservation world--including interviews with friends, family, and protégés.
Download or read book Finding Birds on the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail written by Ted Eubanks and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Texas coast offers rich avian treasures for expert birders and beginners alike, if only they know where to look. For those familiar with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's maps to the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail, this book on the Upper Texas Coast offers more--more information, more convenient and detailed maps, more pictures, more finding tips, and more birding advice from one of the trail's creators, Ted Lee Eubanks Jr., and trail experts Robert A. Behrstock and Seth Davidson. For those new to the trail, the book is the perfect companion for learning where to find and how to bird the very best venues on this part of the Texas coast. In an opening tutorial on habitat and seasonal strategies for birding the Upper Texas Coast, the authors include tips on how to take advantage of the famous (but elusive) fallouts of birds that happen here. They then briefly discuss the basics of birding by ear and the rewards of passive birding before turning to the trail itself and each of more than 120 birding sites from the Louisiana-Texas border, through Galveston and Houston, to just south of Freeport. Advice oninding bird groups While not intended as a field identification guide, the book contains more than 175 color photographs of birds and their coastal habitat, giving readers an excellent feel for the trail's diversity and abundance. Whether you are making your annual spring pilgrimage to Texas, leisurely traveling with the family along the coast, or wondering what to do during a layover in Houston, using this book as your guide to the trail will greatly enhance your birding experience.
Download or read book Big Years Biggest States written by Lynn E. Barber and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-30 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Undertaking a Big Year requires a more extreme version of planning than what is needed to bird in a typical year. In a Big Year a birder is trying to see or hear new birds every day, day after day, throughout the whole year. The first woman to complete a North American Big Year (continental United States and Canada) and identify over 700 species, Lynn E. Barber clocked more than 175,000 miles and ticked off a then record setting 723 species over twelve months in 2008. Yet even as an anomaly—a female birder in the then male-dominated world of competitive birding—she took the initiative to reimagine the whole idea of a Big Year in the two biggest states in the country. At home in both Texas and Alaska, Barber offers an inside look into how to plan, execute, and thoroughly enjoy a year of finding the birds that inhabit two of the nation’s most diverse landscapes. The drastic differences between the climate, geography, plant life, and habitat at the far northern and southern edges of the US mainland mean seeing a distinct number of birds in each state that are not found in the other. Yet as states with both coastal and international boundaries, Texas and Alaska provide countless opportunities to see the most seasonally varied, far flying, and specifically adapted birds in the world. As Barber chronicles her travels throughout the Texan and Alaskan landscapes, serious and casual birders alike will appreciate her lively and informative prose and commitment to her distinct approach to the Big Year challenge.
Download or read book On the Wings of Cranes written by Lowell M. Schake and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2008 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To love whooping cranes, sandhill cranes, and Kirtland's warblers was easy for Larry Walkinshaw. Saving them from extinction engulfed his life. Journey into Walkinshaw's incredible life drama to discover how his adventures led him onto the pinnacle of ornithological attainment-into that world of birding he so loved and mastered. Join him in the global wilderness of marshlands, deserts, and tundra seeking nature's truths as birds literally hatched, fluttered, and died in his hands. On the Wings of Cranes reveals how cranes and Walkinshaw became synonymous. Recognized as "The Father of International Studies of Gruiformes," he led in the salvation of endangered whooping cranes, greater sandhill cranes, and Kirtland's warblers. At times, heartbreak entered his life, but his perseverance held as he took calculated risks, sacrificed, and struggled to save endangered birds. Beneath the mask of his deliberate and reserved personality resided a uniquely complicated genius who desired to serve both nature and humankind. On the Wings of Cranes extends an invitation to respond to the powers of inspiration, motivation, and self-discipline. The theme of Walkinshaw's life is birding-inspiration its message. Soar with Walkinshaw, from take-off to landing, on the wings of cranes.
Download or read book Cemetery Birding written by Jennifer L. Bristol and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2023-12-14 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It might seem unlikely that a place designed for the departed could be teeming with life. Cemeteries have a long history of serving the dual purpose of honoring the deceased while also proving a space for the living to gather and grieve in the embrace of nature. Touted as some of the earliest public parks in the country— with mature trees, open grasslands, meadows of wildflowers—cemeteries are also attractive to birds and wildlife. In an age of distractions and disconnection, cemeteries create a sense of place where visitors can reconnect with nature while exploring the cultural history of a region. For bird watchers, cemeteries offer easy walking, open spaces to peer into habitats, and a peaceful place to feel the breeze and listen to the quiet conversations of nature. Cemetery Birding builds upon the unique and approachable experiences introduced in Jennifer L. Bristol’s first book, Parking Lot Birding. While cemeteries offer accessible places to bird watch, Bristol highlights the need to tread carefully and ethically when exploring these sacred spaces. Her treatment of each of the nearly 100 locations provides information about what birds can be observed in various seasons and offers readers a snapshot of the cemetery and community’s history. Filled with rich photos, Bristol deciphers headstone symbolism in “Tombstone Tales” and offers fun facts about individual species of birds in “Tombstone Tails.” Locations range from the heart of Houston to the wide-open spaces of West Texas and every ecoregion in between.
Download or read book Border Sanctuary written by Morgan Jane Morgan and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2015-08-10 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge lies on the northern bank of the Rio Grande in South Texas, about seventy miles upriver from the Gulf of Mexico. In Border Sanctuary, M.J. Morgan uncovers how 2,000 acres of rare subtropical riparian forest came to be preserved in a region otherwise dramatically altered by human habitation. The story she tells begins and ends with the efforts of the Rio Grande Valley Nature Club to protect one of the last remaining stopovers for birds migrating north from Central and South America. In between, she reconstructs a two hundred-year human and environmental history of the original “two square leagues” of the Santa Ana land grant and of the Mexican and Tejano families who lived on, worked, and ultimately helped preserve this forest on the river’s edge. As border issues continue to present serious challenges for Texas and the nation, it is especially important to be reminded of the deep connection between the region’s human and natural history from the long perspective Morgan provides here. To learn more about The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, sponsors of this book's series, please click here.
