Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 280 pages
- Published by: Texas A&M University Press
- Edition: 1st Edition October 2003
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 1585442968
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-1585442966
-
Book Dimensions:
9.2 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
- Weighs: 1.1 pounds
Product Review
". . . a superb book. . . . opened my eyes to so many things that I did not know about. . . . --
Lonn Taylor, Desert-Mountain Times". . . this year's best entry." --
San Antonio Express-News"Join ace birder Mark Adams on this play-by-play of how he did it. A great ride and a great read." --
Kenn KaufmanThe book is an odd adventure story, one that those who love birds and Texas geography will savor. --
Texas Co-op Power
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Product Description
On the morning of January 1, 2000. Mark T. Adams started counting birds. His goal was to find the largest possible number of species in one year in Texas, an undertaking known in birding parlance as a Big year. By the evening of December 31, he had tied the record of 489 species seen or heard within the state's borders in a single calendar year. Traveling thirty-thousand miles across Texas by car and eighteen-thousand miles by plane, Adams alone saw 92 percent of all bird species reported in the state in 2000. In "Chasing Birds across Texas, Adams invites birders and others with a broad interest in the outdoors to join him in exploring Texas' varied habitats on his quest for birds--from the upper coast to the lower coast; into the Hill Country, the Panhandle, and the Chihuahuan Desert; and up the Davis, Chisos, and Guadalupe Mountains. As he happily celebrates the bounty of the Valley's spring migration or desperately searches for a Panhandle rarity, we watch him grow as a naturalist, exult in the Texas landscape, and benefit from the company of some of the world's best birders. Informative, inspiring, and great fun, "Chasing Birds across Texas conveys as perhaps no other bird book can the humor, obsession, dedication, and adventure that are all part of the sport of birding.
Reader Reviews"Big Years" as far as most birders are concerned almost always refer to an attempt to count how many different birds one can see nationally or even internationally in a specific 365-day period from January 1st through December 31st of a given year. Birders by their very nature are counters and it has become inevitable that for those with neither the time nor the money to fly from, say, the wilds of Alaska to the Dry Tortugas in the Gulf of Mexico and back might decide to make careful records of the birds that they see in a more limited geographical area such as a particular state. Though this is a fairly recent phenomena, today such records exist for every state in the Union. No state in the United States has a wider diversity of birds than Texas which has recorded more than 2/3 of the 900+ birds seen through North America north of Mexico. Beginning on January 1st, 2000, Mark Adams, the assistant director of the University of Texas' McDonald Observatory and an ardent birder,set out to break the Texas record for sightings and by year's end he had done just that with a grand total of 489 different birds having been seen. This quite enjoyable volume recounts Adams' adventures throughout the state as traveled from the Gulf Coast to the Lower Rio Grande Valley to the Panhandle and then down to Big Bend National Park--all while still trying to hold down a full-time job. His successes were many; his failures few and far between even though he frequently laments having missed a rare species here or there. Adams writes in an easy-to-read, enjoyable style. He captures, as ABC-TV used to say on one of its most famous sports programs, "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat" but he does so in such a careful way that most readers will want to read more and more. Chasing Birds Across Texas is, however, a speciality book. Any one who cares about birds, especially the wonderful diversity of them to be found in Texas, will love this book and find it quite fascinating. Non-birders, on the other hand, will probably wonder at Adams' sanity and be bemused by why a grown man would care about the difference between a Blue Bunting and a Blue Mockingbird or would drive hundreds of miles in the hopes of seeing either.
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