Nesting Birds of the Coastal Islands: A Naturalist's Year on Galveston Bay

by John C. Dyes

Overview

Every year, more than twenty species of terns, gulls, and colonial wading birds raise their young on rookery islands all along the Gulf Coast. Their breeding and nesting activities go on in the wake of passing oil tankers, commercial fishing vessels, and pleasure boats of all kinds—human traffic that threatens their already circumscribed habitats.

John C. Dyes has spent more than ten years photographing and observing the birds in their rookeries on the Texas Coast, and, in Nesting Birds of the Coastal Islands, he presents a year in the birds' life through fine photographs and an evocative and informative text. In a month-by-month account, he follows the annual rituals and daily dramas of courtship, mating, and chick rearing among herons, egrets, spoonbills, cormorants, ibises, and other birds that migrate and gather in colonies ranging from half a dozen birds to tens of thousands.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780292758988
Publisher:	University of Texas Press
Publication date:	09/17/2013
Series:	Corrie Herring Hooks Series , #22
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	163
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

After retiring from a career as a technical services engineer with Marathon Oil Company, John C. Dyes became a freelance photographer, birder, and writer who specialized in avian photography.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• January. The Islands
• February. The Gathering
• March. Nest Building and Breeding
• April. Nests and Eggs
• May. Hatching and Chicks
• June. Feeding Chicks: The Dispersion Begins
• July. The Dispersion
• August. Hurricane
• September. Migration: The Winter Season Begins
• Epilogue
• Nesting Colonial Waterbird Species
• Bibliography
• Index