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acknowledgments Ted Eubanks would like to thank his parents, Ted and Mary, for providing the spark, and his wife, Virginia, for allowing the spark to glow for so many years. Bob Behrstock is grateful to his parents Jerome and Salli for encouraging his natural history pursuits from early childhood. He also recognizes Ben and Linda Feltner and Mary Ann Chapman, who provided his entrée to East Texas birding and later became his partners in Peregrine Tours. Ron Weeks would like to thank his wife, Irenna, and his children, Mathias and Ariana, for the time spent away from them while birding and writing about birds. He would also like to recognize his birding mentor in his home state of Montana, the late P. D. Skaar. Long before we ever considered writing a book about the birds of the UTC, many people shared their time and knowledge with us. During the ensuing years, many more aided our field and library efforts in a variety of ways. We would like to acknowledge the help of many people we have joined in the field, including Ron and Marcia Braun, Charles and Olivia Brower, Mary Ann Chapman, Jane Clayton, Fred Collins, Tom and Sherry Collins, David and Jan Dauphin, Victor Emanuel, Ted Eubanks Sr., T. Ben Feltner and Linda Feltner, David Matson, Jim Morgan, Gretchen Mueller, Will and Jan Risser, and John and Gloria Tveten; and the late birders Margaret Anderson , Charles Clark, George Clayton, Wes Cureton, Emery Froelich, and Paul and Margaret Jones. This work depends heavily on the many people, too numerous even to begin to mention, who have contributed their sightings to the Gulf Coast Migrant, the Clearinghouse section of the Spoonbill, American Birds, and Audubon Field Notes. To them and to the editors of these publications, we are grateful. We acknowledge the efforts of the many birders who have compiled annual Christmas Bird Counts organized by the National Audubon Society. We also thank the many skilled leaders who have donated countless hours leading field trips for local bird clubs, including the Ornithology Group of the Outdoor Nature Club of Houston (ONC) and the Houston Audubon Society. Besides supplying our database with records, their actions continue to foster interest in the avifauna of the UTC. Organizations of interest to birders are listed in appendix 1, and we encourage participation in their field trips and support for their environmental activities, upon which the local birdlife depends. Various individuals provided us with data compilations from which we have drawn, including Ron and Marcia Braun (banding records and various observations ), Charles and Olivia Brower (hummingbird banding records), Winnie Burkett and Gail Diane Yavanovich (Bolivar Flats and hawk migration), Fred Collins (waterfowl and shorebirds), Tom and Sherry Collins (Freeport CBC data), T. Ben Feltner and Noel Pettingell (UTC records), Tony and Phyllis Frank (Spoonbill records), C. Hacker (band return data), Kevin Karlson (shorebirds), Paula Kennedy (Armand Bayou), Mike Lange (colonial waterbirds), Bob McFarlane (shorebird numbers), Brent Ortego (hummingbirds , eagles, etc.), Dick Payne (avitourism), Dwight Peake (pelagic birds), Frank Peace (hawk migration), Royce Pendergast (far eastern Texas records), Sumita Prasad (various bird records), Cecilia Riley (Henslow’s Sparrow, raptor and waterbird counts), David Sarkozi (rail information and local records), Spencer Simon and Jim Neaville (Anahuac and Sea Rim national wildlife refuges), Jim Stevenson (Galveston Island records), Don Verser, Cin-Ty Lee, and Jim Hinson (recent passerine migration records), Matt Wagner (colonial waterbirds), and John and Jana Whittle (far eastern Texas records). Our friend and field companion Jim Morgan helped us on a number of fronts, providing among other things migration dates and sparrow information. We are particularly indebted to Jim for collecting and compiling two decades of fallout censuses and then providing this rare and thus far unpublished data set for our use. Over the years, his census efforts were aided by Fred Collins, Glen Cureton , Penny Cureton, the late Wes Cureton, T. Ben Feltner, Eubanks, and Behrstock. We are also indebted to Greg Lasley and Chuck Sexton for generously providing several versions of the Texas Bird Records Committee’s Review List and to Mark Lockwood for frequently updating us with the committee’s latest voting rounds. These data greatly enhance the value of our publication to both the birding and scientific communities. For no reward other than helping their fellow birders find some of our more exciting avian visitors, Gary Clark, Kathy Adams-Clark, Mike Austin, Peter Gottschling, Susan Ellis, and Lynne Aldrich have donated countless hours operating the UTC’s rare bird tape...

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