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What to Do at High Island When the Winds are South

10,000 Birds

Houston Audubon instituted a ‘no hunting’ policy and by July 1995, there were 50 heron nests on the island, protected from mammalian predators by the large alligators in the waterways. Many birders left at the first drops, but I crowded with a few other birders under the shelter of the volunteer kiosk. Another Hooded!

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Come@Me: Don’t Mourn for Extinct Birds

10,000 Birds

The causes were the usual reasons for island extinction—deforestation by both humans and invasive plants that crowded out native plants, hunting, and invasive rats, mongoose, monkeys, and, of course, feral cats. Women gathered their long skirts and hurried for the shelter of stores. We know what those large flocks were like.

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