Charles Thompson Collins (Born March 9, 1938 in Long Branch, New Jersey) is an American ornithologist. His research focus is on the family of the sailors (Apodidae).
Collins received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from Amherst College in 1960. In 1962 he graduated from the University of Michigan with a Master of Science degree in Zoology. In 1966 he was at the University of Florida under the direction of Pierce Brodkorb with the dissertation The Comparative Biologie of Two Species of Swifts in Trinidad, W. I. for Ph.D. PhD in zoology.
From 1963 to 1966, Collins was a teaching assistant at the University of Florida in General Zoology, Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy, Genetics, and Evolution. From 1967 to 1968 he was an assistant professor in the courses of genetics, natural history of vertebrates and general biology at Fairleigh Dickinson University. In 1968 he became an assistant professor and later professor in the Faculty of Life Sciences at California State University, where he taught the courses Introduction to Ornithology and Advanced Ornithology, Environmental Energy and General Biology.
Collins studied the avifauna in the eastern United States. As part of the studies for his doctoral thesis, he traveled to Trinidad in 1962, 1963 and 1964. He undertook short excursions to this island during his postdoc phase from 1966 to 1968. In 1964, 1966 and 1972 he came to Venezuela for field studies. He also visited several West Indies, northern Mexico, the western United States, especially southern California.
His main research interest is the breeding biology and ecology of sailors. His other research projects include the growth of birds, the population development of the island jay (Aphelocoma insularis) and pterylosis (arrangement of feathers) at birth.
Collins is a member of the American Ornithologists’ Union, the Cooper Ornithological Society, Sigma Xi, the Wilson Ornithological Society, the Eastern Bird Banding Assocation, the Association or Tropical Biology, the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the Southern California Academy of Sciences and at the Western Bird Band Association.
Collins wrote the articles on the White-breasted Swift and the Black Swift in the Encyclopedia Birds of North America. In 1991 he wrote the chapter on the sailors and hummingbirds in the Encyclopedia of Birds by Joseph Michael Forshaw.
- Curriculum Vitae: Charles T. Collins In: City of Long Beach Downtown Marina Attachments, Moffatt & Nichol Engineers, Long Beach, California, S. 216–2017 (Online)
–
–
