Customer Reviews

Birds of North Central Texas (W. L. Moody Jr. Natural History Series)

5 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

(Preface: this book is not written by W.L. Moody, Jr. - it is no. 9 of a series of natural history publications known as the W.L. Moody, Jr. series. The author is Warren M. Pulich.)

Warren Pulich, Professor of Ornithology at the University of Dallas, researched extensively to publish this definitive (as of 1988) source for historical abundance of species in North Central Texas. For Texas birders, this is THE authority on which later work has been based, including Jim Peterson's excellent and updated website, nctexasbirds(dot)com.

This book is designed to help persons living in north central Texas understand the status of the birds found in their counties. Although the counties have many similarities, the habitat of a particular county as well as the land use in the county may determine the presence or absence of a particular species. Besides data on the occurrence of the birds in the respective counties, information on habitat, breeding, and abundance, as well as other information applicable to a particular avian species, is presented in the book. It also brings avian records up to date (as of 1988) for each of the counties in the study area.

This book encompasses the following 32 North Central Texas counties: Archer, Baylor, Bosque, Clay, Collin, Cooke, Dallas, Denton, Ellis, Fannin, Grayson, Hill, Hood, Hunt, Jack, Johnson, Kaufman, Montague, Navarro, Palo Pinto, Parker, Rains, Rockwall, Somervell, Stephens, Tarrant, Throckmorton, Van Zandt, Wichita, Wilbarger, Wise, and Young.

As a long-time member and sometimes officer of Audubon Dallas, I highly recommend this book for any birder who wants more information than conveyed by a checklist when it comes to birds found in North Central Texas.

This is actually a very good, informative book in many ways. The problem is in one respect that it's not what its title purports it to be, and it also failed to include photographs--a feature that would be an invaluable addition to a work of this quality. I reside in Brown County--definitely in north-central Texas, but this book's jurisdiction doesn't even come close to where I live. Rather, this book focuses on the Metroplex (DFW) and surrounding environs. Any real Texan knows that the Metroplex isn't even in Central Texas; it's in North Texas. Had this book been properly entitled to indicate that it covers North Texas, and had pictures been included, I would've given it a rating of five stars, despite the fact that it's inappropriate for my locale. As matters stand, I wasted my valuable time and money.