". . . a detailed account of the life of one of the bird
world's most unusual and productive observers."-New York Times
In any other context, saying that someone was "for the
birds" would hardly be polite. But applied to Connie Hagar,
it would be high praise. The diminutive birdwatcher nicknamed
Connie was reared as Martha Conger Neblett in early twentieth-
century Texas, where she led a genteel life of tea parties and
music lessons. But at middle age she became fascinated with birds
and resolved to learn everything she could about them. In 1935,
she and her husband, Jack, moved to Rockport, on the Coastal Bend
of Texas, to be at the center of one of the most abundant areas
of bird life in the country.
Her diligence in observation soon had her setting elite East
Coast ornithologists on their ears, as she sighted more and more
species the experts claimed she could not possibly have seen.
(Repeatedly she proved them wrong.) She ultimately earned the
respect and love of birders from the shores of New Jersey to
the islands of the Pacific. Life magazine pictured her in a
tribute to the country's premier amateur naturalists, and she
received many awards from nature and birding societies.
Hagar's life history is more than just a bird book. It is a
story of dedication to nature and the role she could play in
promoting it to others, despite recurring threats of blindness
and other health problems. The hundreds of species of birds that
visited Rockport each year brought thousands of other birders,
and Hagar patiently hosted and assisted both the greenest beginners
and the most magisterial experts.
Hagar and McCracken's Boswellian-Johnsonian relationship, Hagar's
own "Nature Calendars" containing thirty-five years of observations,
and interviews with those who knew the "bird woman of Rockport" provide
the basis for this narrative. It was Hagar who, more than anyone else,
made coastal Texas a mecca for serious birders.
_________________________________________________________
KAREN HARDEN McCRACKEN, who herself learned birding from Hagar,
traveled throughout North and Central America and Africa in search
of birds. She worked as a newspaper reporter, teacher, and freelance
writer in Rockport and Corpus Christi.
