During his exploration of the Texas coast in the late spring of 1837, John James Audubon lamented discovering so few new bird species. But what Audubon lacked in new species of birds, he gained with variety, numbers, and ranges. In his notes for the Spotted sandpiper, Audubon reflected on the significance of the Texas coast: “in search of information respecting the birds which at one season or other are found within the limits of the United States, I observed so vast a number of them in Texas, that I almost concluded that more than two-thirds of our species occur there.” Numbers today indicate that Audubon was right on the mark. Cornell’s e-Bird system currently shows that out of the 1014 species that have appeared in the Lower 48 United States, 687 species have been counted in Texas.
Upon leaving the coast of the Gulf of Mexico on May 25, 1837, Audubon and his son, John Woodhouse Audubon, spent two weeks making their way to Charleston, South Carolina. While in Charleston, Audubon was invited by James Smith Rhett to the stately “suburbs” of the town to observe the peculiar activity that he and his son were noticing around the nest of the Yellow-billed cuckoo. After two fledglings were pointed out perching close to the nest, Rhett’s son climbed up the tree to retrieve the nest and show that inside the nest there were three more chicks in different stages of development and two eggs! A fully developed chick was found inside one of the eggs, and the other egg was apparently just laid. Eggs that are “successively hatched” is known today as asynchronous hatching. Other birds that have since been observed producing young through asynchronous hatching or immediate incubation include pelicans, cormorants, herons, storks, eagles, hawks, cranes, parrots, and owls.