A Birder's Guide to the Rio Grande Valley


Book Description

A Birder's Guide to the Rio Grande Valley is designed to help you locate not only the specialty birds of the Rio Grande Valley not occurring elsewhere in North America but also to find the more common birds of the region. Birding begins in the wonderland of the Lower Rio Grande Valley, detailing routes designed to help you make the most of your visit at any time of year. The guide deviates from the Valley to cover the Edwards Plateau, the Davis Mountains, the Pecos Valley, and Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Special attention is given to the world-renowned regional hotspots: Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, Big Bend National Park, and the Davis Mountains, as well as the El Paso and Las Cruces, NM areas. In addition to descriptions of over 230 birding sites, the authors have completely updated the Annotated Checklist, covering more than 500 species.




A Birder's Guide to the Texas Coast


Book Description

A Birder's Guide to the Texas Coast will be indispensable as your field guide to one of the world's premier birding destinations. The Texas coast is home to an amazing number of migrating and wintering birds, as well as many specialty resident and nesting species. The habitat diversity ranges from the Pineywoods to the Gulf prairies, from the coastal wetlands to the South Texas subtropics. The spring migration of neotropical birds along the coast is one of North America's most remarkable birding spectacles. And the region is host to some of the nation's largest congregations of herons, egrets, rails, shorebirds, gulls, and terns at any season. A Birder's Guide to the Texas Coast includes Species Accounts for over 170 Texas specialties, and more than 70 new sites, for a total of over 200 birding stops, as well as bar-graphs for 388 regularly occurring Texas Coast species.




Nesting Birds of a Tropical Frontier


Book Description

Describes the habits, habitats, characteristics, and special features of nesting birds in the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, as well as conservation efforts in the region.







A Birder's Guide to Southern California


Book Description

The vast, varied topography that is Southern California has recorded over 555 naturally occurring bird species, many of which are near endemics to its geography. Each of Southern California's many habitats offers its own specialties, and this guide will help you to find them all. The birding routes, with instructions and exact mileages between suggested stops, guide resident and visiting birders to hundreds of birding sites. New to this edition are chapters covering the Kern River Valley, the rugged Clark Mountain wilderness, southeastern California's Blythe region, Sespe Condor Sanctuary, coastal Ventura County, and birding hot spots in suburban San Fernando Valley. All chapters from earlier editions and their locations have been revisited by the author and/or local bird authorities to test current conditions and confirm or revise birding information for accuracy. The maps, bar-graphs, and Specialties section all have been up-dated to ensure that the reader has effective tools at hand for contemporary birding.




A Birder's Guide to Alaska


Book Description

A Birder's Guide to Alaska gives you the detailed information you need to find the Great Lands great birds. Over 60 locations are covered, including the state's entire road system, the Alaska Highway from Dawson Creek, British Columbia through the Yukon to Alaska, the Alaska Marine Highway ferry system, and the Alaska Marine Highway from British Columbia to Alaska. Special attention is given to providing birding information for the larger communities of Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau, in addition to Alaska's popular tourist destinations: Denali National Park, the Inside Passage, the Kenai Peninsula, and Nome. Year-round birding information is included for most locations. Each chapter includes a section on local logistics and more comprehensive trip-planning information is included in the introduction.




Birdfinder


Book Description

This book is based on the premise that birders can successfully plan to find a vast number of species of birds in North America, as long as they are armed with information about where to go, when to go, and what to expect.Birdfinder outlines nineteen key trips designed to produce a list of over 650 species in North America. Jerry Cooper makes this possible both economically and efficiently. Cooper summarizes the Key, Possible, Probable, and Remotely Possible birds to be seen on each of the nineteen trips, with details on transportation, accommodations, special equipment, and the birdfinding guides you will need. The specialties and key species for each of these trips are outlined in detail. This is a planning guide, illustrating a strategy for successful North American birdfinding.If you have unlimited time, you can follow the whole itinerary, trip after trip, in chronological order. Most birders, however, will pick and choose among the nineteen trips to suit the times they are free to travel. In either case, your birding experiences and lifelist will benefit greatly.Each of the nineteen trips in Birdfinder has at least one map to highlight the birding route. Another important feature of this guide is a special chart summarizing all the species to be seen on these major trips.As a bonus, an additional "Baker's Dozen" locations are included in a special chapter.Birdfinder: A Birder's Guide to Planning North American Trips will serve the dedicated birder as an essential companion to regular birdfinding guides.




Birder's Guide to Texas


Book Description

For Texas residents and visitors alike, this book is your best guide to the outstanding birding opportunities in the Lone Star State. It reveals where you can find resident, migrant, and rare birds. Explicit driving directions, maps, checklists, and detailed descriptions of hot birding sites make this book the perfect guide for nature lovers, casual bird observers, Life List compilers, and dedicated ornithologists.




Adventures of a Louisiana Birder


Book Description

This candid and humorous chronicle shows how one woman goes from casual observer to obsessive bird nerd as she traverses Louisiana’s avian paradise. In Adventures of a Louisiana Birder, readers follow Marybeth Lima across her adopted state in search of 300 species of birds. Bisected by the Mississippi flyway and home to 400 miles of coast, Louisiana has a variety of habitats, which serve as a beautiful backdrop to this remarkable journey. In birding circles, some devotees attempt what is known as a “big year,” a bird-sighting challenge to identify as many bird species as possible in a particular geographical area over the course of one year. Lima’s initial effort amounted to 11,626 miles in sixty-one road trips to log an impressive 280 species. But on a subsequent quest to exceed her record, she endures elusive birds, embarrassing misidentifications, and hungry insects in an effort to reach her goal. In the midst of these obstacles, Lima celebrates the camaraderie and friendly competition among fellow birders, from novices to a world-renown ornithologist. Requiring both mental focus and physical agility, birdwatching becomes an active sport through Lima’s narration. She vividly conveys the elation over a rare species seen or heard and the disappointment when one is narrowly missed. An appendix provides the location and date of every species she identifies. Lima’s personal experiences are interwoven with the excitement of tracking down one intriguing species after another. She faces a near-fatal burn accident to her spouse, end-of-life care for her mother-in-law, and Louisiana’s great flood of 2016. In the midst of these situations, her devotion to birding provides a much-needed outlet. “Somewhere in the roiling confluence of birds, locales, and human personalities,” writes Lima, “the center of my heart sings with utter abandon.” Adventures of a Louisiana Birder is the author’s call to a deeper passion for and awareness of Louisiana’s unique natural beauty and vulnerability.




In the Field, Among the Feathered


Book Description

Thomas Dunlap shows how bird guides have changed with science and popular interest and how birding's twin activities, conservation and recreation, have over the last 120 years shaped our understanding of nature and supported its preservation as part of the nation and our lives.