Birds of the Texas Coast

Birds of the Texas Coast: Photographs is the first large-format photography work covering the entire Lone Star coast and its representative bird life. Through Ron Grimes's dramatic photography of more than 200 coastal species, this book encompasses a deep and wide natural history of the region. The Texas Coast is one of North America's premier regions for bird life due to the diversity of its physical landscape, such as barrier islands and estuaries and its central geographic location within the Western Hemisphere. Longtime chronicler of the Texas coastal environment B. C. Robison provides the written text, which is organized according to the natural habitats that make up the coastal zone. Its 367-mile reach from Louisiana to Mexico traces through wetlands, lakes, ponds and bays, sandy shores, grasslands and prairie, upland forests, and the thornscrub world of the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Each chapter deals with one habitat and presents color photographs of the prominent species that occur there. All the major families of Texas coastal birds are depicted: songbirds, waterfowl, marsh birds, herons and egrets, cranes, hawks and falcons, swifts and swallows, owls and harriers, eagles and kites, grassland birds, gulls and terns, pelicans and cormorants, and shorebirds such as plovers, sandpipers, oystercatchers, and skimmers, as well as many others. Birds of the Texas Coast will be a valuable addition to the birder's library of works on Texas bird life.