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.

This book documents nearly 500 US and Canadian locations where wildlife refuges, nature preserves, and similar properties protect natural sites that lie within the North American Great Plains, from Canada's Prairie Provinces to the Texas-Mexico border. Information on site location, size, biological diversity, and the presence of especially rare or interesting flora and fauna are mentioned, as well as driving directions, mailing addresses, and phone numbers or internet addresses, as available. US federal sites include 11 national grasslands, 13 national parks, 16 national monuments, and more than 70 national wildlife refuges. State properties include nearly 100 state parks and wildlife management areas. Also included are about 60 national and provincial parks, national wildlife areas, and migratory bird sanctuaries in Canada's Prairie Provinces. Many public-access properties owned by counties, towns, and private organizations are also described.

Since it was first published in 1996, Official Guide to Texas State Parks and Historic Sites has become Texans’ one-stop source for information on great places to camp, fish, hike, backpack, swim, ride horseback, go rock climbing, view scenic landscapes, tour historical sites, and enjoy almost any other outdoor recreation. Freshly redesigned, this revised edition includes eight new state parks and historical sites, completely updated information for every park, and beautiful new photographs for most of the parks. The book is organized by geographical regions to help you plan your trips around the state. For every park, Laurence Parent provides all of the essential information: The natural or historical attractions of the park Types of recreation offered Camping and lodging facilities Addresses and phone numbers Magnificent color photographs So if you want to watch the sun set over Enchanted Rock, fish in the surf on the beach at Galveston, or listen for a ghostly bugle among the ruins of Fort Lancaster, let this book be your complete guide. Don’t take a trip in Texas without it.

Covers 542 species of birds, emphasizing distinguishing characteristics visible in the field.

." . . a very solid, interesting, and significant contribution to environmental knowledge about the Coastal Bend of Texas. . . . It will make an excellent companion volume to their Matagorda book." --Robin W. Doughty, author of Return of the Whooping Crane and The Mockingbird Widely known as the wintering grounds of the world's largest wild flock of endangered whooping cranes, the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge attracts thousands of visitors to the Texas Gulf Coast each year, from casual birdwatchers to professional scientists. This naturalist's guide offers a comprehensive overview of the natural and cultural history of Aransas, taking an ecological approach to show how the plants, animals, land, and sea form a living web that sustains an amazing diversity of creatures. Individual chapters discuss the land itself, the whooping cranes and other endangered species, game animals, introduced species, mammals, birds, herptiles, fish, invertebrates, and woody and herbaceous plants. With this information, visitors to the refuge and everyone interested in the natural history of the Texas Gulf Coast will enrich their knowledge of this environmentally crucial region.

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.

Now available in PDF format. DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: USA is your indispensable guide to every corner of America. The fully updated guide includes unique illustrated cutaways, floor plans, and reconstructions of the must-see sights, plus street-by-street maps of cities and towns. DK's insider travel tips and essential local information will help you discover the best of this vast nation by regions, from local festivals and markets to day trips outside of large cities. Detailed listings will guide you to hotels, restaurants, bars, and shopping for all budgets, while practical information will help you to get around, whether by train, bus, or car. With hundreds of full-color photographs, hand-drawn illustrations, and custom maps that brighten every page, DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: USA truly shows you this country as no one else can.