The Nature Dude

spring done sprang...

2012-02-22T12:06:00.000-06:00

fresh this morning...brand-new strawberry bush (Euonymus americanus) foliage

"Behold: all things are become new..."

-- 2 Corinthians 5:17

softly..........slowly...........

Spring came creeping in over the Mardi Gras weekend, meek, mild, and inspirational as ever. Living back in the Bayou Vermilion floodplain, I couldn't help but note the contrast between our garish celebration – round numbah 12,032 [or thereabouts] in our own perpetual search for self-validation – versus Spring's brand of celebration, which by its mere presence, becomes validation for all things, including us po' humans.

back porch view: wild geranium, oxalis, rain lily, , spiderwort, bedstraw carpet

below; freshly-expanding leaves of deciduous holly, rough-leaf dogwood, and elderberry above.

you can't see the seed feeders very well (against the smaller of Lydia's old rehab pens), but an older male Chipping Sparrow stubbornly remained there -- refusing to abandon his breakfast buffet -- hotly "chipping" his protest as i approached to within 15' to take this picture.

Here in the low woodlands, the arrival of Spring 2012 has brought its usual sachel of pleasantly-lukewarm temperatures, days-in-a-row of rains or threats of rains, along with the resultant clouds of mosquitoes, the evil carpenter bee, the fantastically-fresh flowers of the early-spring bloomers, and today, the promising apprearance of the first new leaves of our deciduous plants. Soon, the hollow-echoing sound of winter will be replaced with the gently-muffled softness of spring. Heck, cardinals, chickadees, titmice, wrens, mockingbirds – even hawks – are hollering their lungs out for hours a day.

rain lily blooms sneak thru a chubby clump of spiderwort garlanded with bedstraw

the venerable old Cherrylaurel (almond-scented leaves!), fronted by

'Old Blush' the first antique rose variety brought in to the U.S. (ca. 1750)

The blooms of local early-spring plants, yes, we wait for those; but it is the unfurling of the first leaves of the year that really raise the hairs on the back of my neck, you know? The sudden near-wall-to-wall appearance of vibrant yet somehow soft hues of green, along with their accompanying textures, is almost startling. As of this morning, numerous local trees are now leafing out: pawpaw, red buckeye, sweetgum, black willow, deciduous holly, rough-leaf dogwood, and strawberry bush.

The sounds of the birds and the long lost buzzing of flying insects echo through the warmish moisture-laden air. It's all almost too much to take in. Almost.

The pictured rain lily species is Zephranthes candida (aka "zephyrlily"), a South American native which has naturalized around Louisiana a good bit. Other natives currently in bloom include mayhaw (Crataegus opaca/aestivalis), blue phlox (Phlox divarcata), dewberry (Rubus trivialis), and little-leaf viburnum (V. obovatum).

little-leaf viburnum is a wetland species; this one is some sort of

dwarf cultivar (can't remember its name)

Spring down here along the Gulf Rim is hard to beat. Within a couple of weeks, you'll have to almost get out of the way as the bird, bug, and bloom/foliage parade picks up steam. As we say here in Cajunland, "Get out and get you some!"

mardi gras maple

2012-02-06T13:42:00.000-06:00

Samaras of Acer rubrum var. drummondii

Genetic variation...some plants got it, some don't. Here in the southeastern U.S. for example, white oaks look pretty much the same wherever they are found. Ditto for southern red oaks. On the other hand, water oaks show lots of genetic variation in leaf margin/shape. Ditto for delta post oak (Quercus similis).

American Robins feasting on "standard" Yaupon Holly fruits

(photo by Stephen Pagans)

And then there are species such as yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria), which exhibits big-time differences in leaf size, branching patterns, growth habit, fruit color, etc., often within single locales!

By the way, the UL-Lafayette campus and nearby Ira Nelson Horticulture Center on Johnston Street in Lafayette, may still host a substantial number of holly variants; for back in the golden age of horticultural research (1950-80) there, a number of UL horticulture professors were collecting, hybridizing, and test-planting all sorts of hollies, native and exotic. Dr. James Foret, for example, found a female yaupon out in the wild with pendulant branch growth which he named 'Folsom's Weeping' Yaupon, a plant which is still in the nursery trade today.

"Swamp Red Maple" (Acer rubrum var. drummondii)

Red maple (Acer rubrum ssp.) is another native species exhibiting tons of variation, mainly in leaf shape and pubescence, fruit size and color, and winter foliage color as well – so much so that it has been subdivided into three distinct botanical varieties: red maple (A. rubrum var. rubrum ), Drummond's red maple (A. rubrum var. drummondii), and (no common name) A. rubrum var. trilobum; each of these varieties occurring in discreet populations throughout the species' eastern U.S. range. Moreover, even within each varietal population, substantial variation is regularly observed in the wild.

Drummond's red maple (Acer rubrum var. drummondii), locally known as “swamp red maple,” is heavily distributed throughout Louisiana's “brown water” swamps and bottomland hardwood habitats. Able to thrive alongside bald cypress and tupelo gum in even permanently-inundated swamps, swamp red maple is one of the most common trees within south-central Louisiana's Atchafalaya Basin – said to be the largest remaining river swamp in North America. Compared to the leaves of the “standard” red maple (Acer rubrum var. rubrum), swamp red maple leaves feature densely pubescent undersurfaces – so much so that the undersurfaces appear silvery-white – whereas the undersurfaces of the former almost completely lack pubescence and appear nearly the same hue of green as the upper surfaces. Too, swamp red maple leaves are mostly three-lobed (as opposed to mostly five-lobed in red maple), with lobes featuring very shallow “toothing”(as opposed to deep/irregular toothing in red maple).

Acer rubrum var. drummondii

loaded with samaras

Coming into bloom each January, swamp red maples are soon adorned with clusters of large, long-stemmed, two-winged fruit capsules known as samaras. By February samara production reaches its peak, resulting in tree branches heavily-hung with samara clusters in colors ranging from paper-bag-brown to flesh pink to pink-mauve to ruby-red to ox-blood-red.

Note Samara Color Variations Among These Four

Randomly Selected/Randomly Planted Specimens

Many years ago, it was none other than Dr. James Foret who suggested that we capitalize on this local February spectacle, and advertise a “Mardi Gras Maple Tour” across the Atchafalaya Basin during the Mardi Gras season, when so many tourists are hanging around in south Louisiana. Dr. Foret reasoned that since we do not have the annual “in-your-face” fall foliage color show celebrated in northern states, why not focus on the nearly-as-spectacular “sort-of-in-your-face” early-spring samara color show – focused particularly in the Atchafalaya Basin where 1) swamp red maples are abundant, and 2) many tourists are traveling between New Orleans and Lafayette in order to catch both “city” and “country” cultural flavors of our Fat Tuesday celebrations.

In essence, Dr. James Foret was suggesting one of Louisiana's first eco-tourism events.

Alas, the idea never did gain traction in any official capacity. But then again, hooray(!); as swamp red maples care not whether their fruiting season is celebrated by humans or not . . . they just go on fruiting February after February.

Suggestion: Take a drive on I-10 across the basin this month. Stop off at the fine tourist center at Butte LaRose. Celebrate our Mardi Gras Maple season for yourselves.

And hey, never underestimate the visual power of our swamp red maple winter foliage color season. It comes late – usually not beginning in earnest until mid-December, and peaking somewhere around Christmas give-or-take a week. Regarding winter foliage color, we have a patch of swamp red maple living in the understory of a smallish grove of green ash trees directly across from our house. Over the years I've noticed that winter foliage color varies not only from tree to tree, but also from winter to winter within individual trees! Below are winter foliage pictures that I've accumulated from this small colony over a period of several winters.

19 December 2005

05 December 2011

10 December 2009

queen sugarberry

2012-01-13T18:21:00.000-06:00

Sunrise on Hackberry Row

Upper Lafayette Parish, Louisiana

13 January 2012

What a symphony out back this morning! It was still below-freezing when I brought my coffee out onto the back porch. The sun had just risen, and new rays were bouncing like mad off of the ashy-gray trunks of the hackberry trees. Dozens upon dozens of robins and cedar waxwings were feasting up at the tops of the hackberries, with dozens and dozens of hackberry seeds pinging off of the tin roofs of Lydia's old mammal enclosures (she functioned as a wild mammal rehabber for many years). The steady seed-pinging laid down the rhythm, upon which many robins overlaid with their joyful spring courtship songs. The cedar waxwings and house finches provided background vocals.

ping! ping! ptweet! ptweet! ping! ping! ptweet! etc.

I mean, what could I do? I had to report this to you, gentle readers.

Called “sugarberry” by foresters and some botanists, the hackberry is an amazingly adaptive tree, possessing a U.S. range spanning the entire continent from Atlantic to Pacific to Gulf Coasts (see http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=CELA). Right here in the south-central U.S. hackberry occupies habitats disparate as the mucky bottomland hardwood forests of Louisiana's Atchafalaya Basin to the water-starved clay hills around Dallas.

Earlier this winter – back in early November, when leaves were still on most of the trees – I predicted that due to the drought of 2011, this winter's hackberry crop would probably hover somewhere between sub-par and awful. Turned out I was wrong. Thankfully so. Beginning sometime around the first week of December, robins began descending into the large hackberry grove that borders the northern and eastern edges of our homesite. This went on for weeks. By Christmas, flocks of cedar waxwings and eastern bluebirds had joined the massive robin flocks. Today (13 January) they're still working it like mad. Upon closer inspection of the now leafless trees, I noticed (through binoculars) that the hackberry crop is, if anything, heavier than normal, but that the berries are noticeably smaller. Smaller but, to the great delight of the robins, sweeter. Alrighty then!

American Robin: munchin' & ptweetin'

Within the ecosystems in which they occur, hackberries are major players in providing winter calories for wild birds and mammals. Here in Louisiana, for example, we conducted a 5-year statewide bird frugivory survey in the latter half of the 1990s. Regarding diversity of bird species utilizing the fruits, hackberry ranked numero uno of the 50 species of berry-producing plants observed, serving 27 different bird species.

Hackberry (Celtis laevigata, aka "sugarberry")

As previously mentioned, the hackberry has been nicknamed “sugarberry” due to the sweetness of its berries. Actually, the berries hold very little pulp. Each berry is enclosed in a rather thick, sweet-tasting husk, underlain by a thin, orange-colored, insipidly-sweet, slimy layer of pulp surrounding a large seed. Given the miniscule amount of pulp involved in each berry, it follows that birds need to eat lots of hackberries in order to obtain nutritional benefit – mammals, even more. And eat them they do, in vast quantities. Lydia and I have seen both raccoons and fox squirrels as well as birds such as yellow-breasted chats eating unripened hackberries as early as August.

sugarberries: shucked, unshucked, half-shucked

In Edible Plants of the Gulf (see http://www.nativeventures.net/books.php) Louisiana botanist Charles Allen wrote that native Americans used hackberries for sustenance as well, grounding the entire berries to use as a flavoring. In Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Vines of Louisiana Allen reports that Indians used the bark of hackberry to treat sore throat and venereal diseases.

Hackberry is an elm family (Ulmaceae) member; and like its close cousins, the elms, its wood is not much good for anything – not even for firewood. Yep. Somewhat useless to contemporary white folks; priceless to wildlife. . . that's sort of the way it goes.

hedge-row birding

2011-12-23T16:11:00.000-06:00

hedgerow at edge of harvested sugar-cane field

16 December 2011, Lafayette parish, LA

Ecotones are places where two or more different habitat types meet. Ecotones are known for high rates of plant and animal diversity, since they most often contain plants and animals from both/all of the involved habitat types. Woodland edges – where forests meet with other habitat types such as prairies, meadows, marshes, etc. – are fine local examples of ecotones.

Similarly, agricultural hedgerows are artificially-generated systems that mimic woodland edges in both structure and species composition. Structurally, hedgerows are linear thickets, usually about 25' in height and width, and densely-packed with trees, shrubs, and vines.

hedgerow flanking a small water course

20 December 2011, Acadia parish, LA

From a bird perspective, hedgerows represent super-safe areas where songbirds can rest and eat in near total concealment. A concealed songbird is a happy bird; and a concealed songbird surrounded by ample food resources is a super-happy bird. Ultimately, a concealed songbird surrounded by ample food and water resources is a blissfully-happy bird!

Hedgerows snake through agricultural lands of all makes and models. Here along the southern Gulf Coastal Plain of the U.S., hedgerows are most often comprised of trees such as water oak, rough-leaf dogwood, hollies, hawthorns, prickly-ash, and cedar; shrubs, like elderberry, viburnums, beautyberry, palmetto, and Chinese privet; and vines, including blackberry, catbrier, moonseed, honeysuckle, poison ivy, and wild grape. Tons of cover and tons of juicy berries.

Rusty-blackhaw Viburnum fruits

Rough-leaf Dogwood fruits

parsley hawthorn fruits

(photo by Annette Parker)

poison ivy fruits

Here in watery Louisiana, agricultural hedgerows flank small bayous, coulees, and artificial irrigation canals and ditches, nicely completing the ultimate food/cover/water formula sought by all wildlife.

Birding along hedgerows is usually very very good, especially during the fall/winter months, when berry production is at its peak, and most of the foliage has fallen, allowing for easier viewing. Following the law of the ecotone – or “edge effect” as it is more commonly known, hedgerow bird communities are very diverse, and include numerous species of hawks, doves, woodpeckers, flycatchers, vireos, wrens, thrushes, mimic thrushes, warblers, sparrows, and others. Let's take a closer look at a few:

the tiny Blue-gray Gnatcatcher is a very common

hedgerow inhabitant, especially near water, where

it subsists on gnats, mosquitoes, and tiny fruits such

as poison ivy berries

White-eyed Vireos occupy hedgerows on a year-round basis

photo by Russ Norwood http://www.perceptivist.com/

like gnatcatchers, kinglets are very tiny birds...

this Ruby-crowned Kinglet is a common winter resident

in southern hedgerows

photo by Russ Norwood http://www.perceptivist.com/

less common winter resident is the Palm Warbler

(note white "eyebrow" and yellow undertail) a bird

which tends to favor Baccharis shrub colonies

(photo by Matt Conn)

tiny lil' bandit! this Common Yellowthroat is a shrub-loving warbler species

which also seems extraordinarily fond of Baccharis shrub colonies

(photo by John Spohrer)

Swamp Sparrow placidly munching on ironweed seed

(photo by Russ Norwood http://www.perceptivist.com/)

King o' da Hedge: White-crowned Sparrow

(photo by Russ Norwood http://www.perceptivist.com/)

and....(drumroll).....Cooper's Hawk (immature): the bane of all

hedgerow-dwelling songbirds!

(photo by Eric Adcock)

case of da red-hot screamin' meemees

2011-12-23T12:55:00.000-06:00

mr. mocker...mad? glad? sad?

On the afternoon of December 06 I was rudely awoken from a nice afternoon nap by furious rapping on our bedroom window, accompanied by shrill hollering. Our bedroom gives onto the back porch, and there near the window sat a mockingbird on an overturned bucket. From there, he'd launch himself up against the window, pecking and shrieking, time and again. During spring breeding season, this sort of behavior is not uncommon in hormone-crazed male mockingbirds and cardinals. But in the dead of winter? What gives?

Stomping out onto the back porch, I went to remove the overturned bucket. I guess in my sleepy mind I figured if I removed his perch, he'd give up and leave.

da bucket in question

Staring down at the bucket, I noticed strange reddish mocker-droppings. Whoa. Was this blood? Was he sick? Dying?

Checking around the nearby porch railing, I found more piles of mocker-droppings -- ten(!) more, to be exact.

ouch! cayenne pepper droppings!

Aha. Those droppings were filled with seeds. Pepper seeds. Cayenne pepper seeds (I could tell by their size and shape). A grand total of thirteen piles of cayenne pepper droppings. Oh man. You crazy beast; what have you done?

Most of you are probably aware that birds like peppers. Dried peppers are included in commerical parrot feed. I've personally seen at least a half-dozen species of songbirds eating small native peppers called "bird pepper" or chile pequin (Capsicum annuum glaberisculum). Why do birds like hot peppers? Is it for the shot of vitamin C that they contain? Or for the systemic stimulation/rush of capsacin in the old blood stream? Or are peppers actually nutrient-rich from a food standpoint? Maybe all of the above? I don't know the answer(s), and I'm not sure whether anyone's studied on it.

One thing's for sure: this particular mocker hadn't just nibbled on a cayenne pepper and leave it at that. He had in fact eaten LOTS of cayenne pepper (we had lots of leftover cayennes in our garden, only about 15' away from the back porch), and he was acting crazy.

An hour or so later as I went out to my truck, there he was, perched on a rear-view mirror, hollering and defecating all over the top of the mirror and all over the pick-up bed -- another good dozen piles of pepper-poo in all.

What the...? I mean, did he eat until his entire GI tract was crammed with pepper??

Ah, Nature. You just never know what you'll encounter next . . .

turtle boy and the green-tailed towhee

2011-11-15T16:43:00.000-06:00

Turtle Boy...kickin' butt 'n takin' names...

It would be no great exaggeration to say that Matt Conn grew up at Lafayette's Acadiana Park Nature Station. Even before I got there in 1986, Matt had already gained infamy as the star of “Turtle Boy,” naturalist Steve Shively's short film featuring eight-year-old Matt and his backyard menagerie of turtles. Thanks to his mom, Kim, Matt and sister Emily visited the Nature Station seemingly just about every week for years; and like many kids, Matt fell hard for the Wild Things. As a college student he went on to work under me as a teaching naturalist at the Nature Station before graduating from ULL with a degree in Renewable/Sustainable Resources. Today, Matt serves as Senior Ecological Project Manager for the John Chance company, a survey/environmental/regulatory firm in Lafayette.

typical "scrub-shrub" habitat bordering a live oak forest

A few years ago, Matt jumped at the chance to acquire 67-acres of freshly-mutilated live oak forest, marsh, and cypress swamp down in Iberia parish, just above Weeks Island. Since then he's planted thousands of trees and is carefully managing the recovery of that diverse little chunk of land.

the elusive/reclusive Seaside Sparrow in a salt-marsh above Sabine Pass

(photo by Matt Conn)

Matt also got into nature photography, and went straight for the most difficult of natural subjects – birds. Unlike plants or turtles, birds move around a lot, and it's exceedingly difficult to capture decent images of them. Now, Matt's wanting to learn all he can about birds; but rather than carrying around a field guide and a pair of binoculars, he just totes his camera, shoots hundreds of frames, and then identifies them later at his leisure. Recently – and much to our mutual benefit – he's been taking shortcuts and simply sending me photos of the birds whose identities he can't figure out.

Green-tailed Towhee; note lovely citrine-yellow edges to folded wing feathers

(photo by Matt Conn)

Just after dawn on 29 October, he photographed a bird at the scrubby entrance to his land that he knew was very different from the regularly-occuring species that he'd been observing. Looking through his field guide, he identified it himself: a Green-tailed Towhee; a ground/brush-dwelling, stout-billed, long-tailed, sparrow-like bird of the mountain-region of the western U.S. During the winter months, Green-tailed Towhees migrate down into the far southwestern U.S. and Mexico. The easternmost edge of the Green-tailed Towhee's wintering grounds is west-central Texas. But as birds are wont to do, a few of them always end up well outside their wintering grounds; some species more than others.

That's the thing about birds. They have wings, and those wings often carry them to wacky places. Birds that are encountered out of place are called “vagrants.”

Like all states, Louisiana keeps close track of its birds – even its vagrant birds. In fact, vagrant bird sightings are the most eagerly-anticipated of all. They're just so . . . vagrant . . . y'know? Some arid-southwestern U.S. vagrant species such as Rufous Hummingbird, Black-chinned Hummingbird, Ash-throated Flycatcher and Vermilion Flycatcher are actually regularly-occurring in Louisiana each winter, with a dozen or two (or more) annual records for each. Others like Scott's Oriole, Sage Thrasher, and the Green-tailed Towhee are recorded much more infrequently, certainly not every winter. In fact, according to Louisiana Bird Records Committee chairman Steve Cardiff, there were only 10 total records of Green-tailed Towhee on file for Louisiana prior to this winter.

Matt's Green-tailed Towhee (lodged here in a honey locust tree)

is one of four recorded thus far in Louisiana this winter

(photo by Matt Conn)

This winter is shaping up to be an odd one, weather-wise and bird-wise. It's going to be a noticeably warmer one, for starters; and with the awful devastation of food, water, and habitat resources in drought-plagued Texas, Louisiana is already receiving a number of rarely-occurring vagrants, including four Green-tailed Towhee sightings thus far. This winter's Green-tailed Towhee sightings have emanated from just south of Shreveport, just south of Alexandria, the Thornwell area of southern Jeff Davis parish, and Matt's bird in Iberia parish.

winter color on da gulf rim

2011-11-12T10:58:00.000-06:00

Swamp Red Maple (Acer drummondii)

Yeah yeah, I know. Down here along the Gulf Rim there's not much fall foliage color to brag about. But what we do have is a winter foliage color show – not in vast expanses, mind you, but definitely in small clumps here and there. It's not exactly gonna rip the eyes right out of your head; rather, it's a matter of opening one's eyes and actually looking for it.

Baldcypress intermingling with a hybrid Holly

(Ilex opaca x cassine) in our backyard;

excellent contrast in both color and texture

Generally, our winter foliage color season begins in November, when baldcypress (Taxodium distichum) reveals the first hints of rust color in its needles. Other early colorizers include black cherry (Prunus serotina) and cedar elm (Ulmus crassifolia). With each passing day, the cypress colors up a little more, until finally around Thanksgiving it drops everything, thickly covering the ground below with a rich, rusty-red carpet.

Cedar Elm (left) and American Hornbeam (right)

provide a nice combination behind our barn

Swamp Cyrilla (Cyrilla racemiflora) is a personal favorite, turning

red/orange/yellow gradually, and over a long period of time

Witch Hazel provides yellow fall color AND fragrant blooms;

all in November!

Black Cherry going orange-yellow

on the northern edge of our backyard

Meanwhile, additional pockets of color can be found in individual specimens of swamp red maple (Acer drummondii), American hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana), sweetgum (Liquidambar styriciflua) and sassafras – and of course Chinese tallow (Sapium sebiferum), but decent folks don't like to talk about that one . . .

Wetland oaks including Nuttall (Quercus texana) and overcup (Q. lyrata) don't begin turning until December; but by Christmas they are both wonders to behold.

Let it be known as well that there are a few outstanding winter-foliage natural areas in northern Louisiana which are easily accessible. The best by far is Sicily Island Hills Wildlife Management Area (see http://sicilyislandhills.com/ and http://www.stateparks.com/sicily_island_hills.html ) in extreme northeastern Catahoula parish; and the best time for winter color is Thanksgiving week. Also visit-worthy are Walter B. Jacobs Memorial Nature Park and Eddie Jones Park (http://www.caddoparks.com/findpark.cfm ), both in Caddo parish around Shreveport. Both of those park feature, among numerous other color plants, stands of southern sugar maple (Acer barbatum), one of the most stunningly colorful of all our winter plants. The Macon Ridge, an ancient Mississippi River escarpment up in Morehouse parish above Monroe also holds nice stands of southern sugar maple. Kalorama Nature Preserve http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kalorama-Nature-Preserve/111378675635675 is a fine destination on Macon Ridge. Check it out. And check out Kalorama curator Beth Erwin's fine blog (http://arborlady.blogspot.com/) 'The View From the Hill' while you're at it.

Fall/winter foliage color arises from red, orange, and yellow-pigmented metabolic wastes (carotenoids, anthocyanins, etc.) which are actually contained in the leaves long before we see them. Toward the end of a leaf's life, chlorophyll production ceases; and once all the residual chlorophyll drains out, its metabolic wastes are finally unmasked.

sparse nesters...

2011-10-25T15:36:00.000-05:00

Northern Flicker showing off its shafts...

(photo by Larry Amy)

Down-river pal Larry Amy recently sent in some nice backyard bird photos from his place on the Vermilion River in Lafayette. Serendipitously, all of the photos featured birds that nest only sparingly here in the cusp of the coastal zone and southern-interior of Louisiana. Most of you are probably familiar with these birds; but chances are that you locals observe them more in fall/winter than in summer. That's because – for reasons unknown – very few pairs of each of these species decide to nest down at this latitude in any given year. It would seem that both food resources and nesting habitat for each of these birds can be found in good supply here in south Louisiana – possibly to an even greater degree than they can be found at the northern ends of their respective breeding ranges. So what's the deal?

Ah, Nature.

The first feature bird is the Northern Flicker. In Larry's photo above, you can readily see how it got its alternative common name, the Yellow-shafted Flicker. Pretty fine, non? “Yellow Hammer” is another common name – one which we used as kids growing up in Ville Platte. 'Course, being from Ville Platte, we pronounced it, “yella hammuh.”

"Yella Hammuh" preparing to hammer...

(photo by Larry Amy)

The few Northern Flickers that I've detected nesting down here over the years have been confined to urban forests – places in towns and cities hosting large neighborhoods of big, mature shade trees. Come October, though, and Yellow-shafted Flickers flood into our region from all over; and their piercing, “KYEAR!” cries can be heard all through the fall and winter months.

More than any other woodpecker, flickers spend much time on the ground gobbling up bugs and other arthropods – including ants. There's a well-told story amongst bird people about gut-analysis performed on the stomach of a single flicker which turned up 5,000 ants(!).

Lydia calls the Belted Kingfisher, the "Blue Monseiur"

due to its fancy hairdo...

(photo by Larry Amy)

Feature bird number two is the Belted Kingfisher, a wetland-associated bird that tunnels into steep stream banks to make its nest. And when I say “tunnel” I mean TUNNEL; for the average tunnel length is three to four feet, with one as long as twelve feet being reported (see Oberholser's Bird Life of Louisiana, 1938). Again, there seems to be no shortage of steep stream banks down here, so why don't we host more nesting kingfishers? Fortunately, Dan Debaillon Coulee (“coulee” is a Cajun word for “gulley” or intermittent stream, ya'll; from the French, couler [“to run”]), which runs right below the north deck of the Acadiana Park Nature Station in Lafayette has handsomely-steep banks, and hosted a pair of nesting Belted Kingfishers for most of the twenty-four summers that I worked there.

Hollerin' Red-tailed Hawk

(photo by Larry Amy)

And then there's the good old Red-tailed Hawk, which enjoys one of the most cosmopolitan breeding range of any North American bird. Southern Louisiana is a winter epicenter for this species. Swamp edges, ag-field edges, meadow edges, pipeline and utility-line rights-of-ways, and roadsides of any sort are all good locations for this bird, which flocks into Louisiana by the thousands (if not tens-of-thousands) each fall and winter. Come summer, though, and Red-tailed nests are few and far-between in these parts. Larry's fortunate enough to have a nesting pair somewhere very near to his Lafayette backyard.

seldom-seen Louisiana birds . . .

2011-10-04T14:18:00.000-05:00

Nelson's Sparrow -- note intricate patterning....handsome devils!

(photo by Jeff Trahan)

On September 28, Shreveport birders Terry Davis and Jeff Trahan, who were conducting a routine migratory shorebird survey at the Yates Tract of the Red River National Wildlife Refuge (south of Shreveport, just northwest of Coushatta, LA), ran across a small group of migrating Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrows. Seldom seen in Louisiana anywhere away from our coast, Nelson's Sparrow is a far-northern breeder (west-central interior Canada and Atlantic coast of Canada) that spends its winters tucked tightly withinin the marshes of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the U.S.

Finding a Nelson's Sparrow anywhere away from its isolated breeding and wintering grounds is a pretty big deal, as this bird tends to stick to marshland habitats even during migration.

Back in 1938 (from The Bird Life of Louisiana) when there were precious few non-game-bird observers living in Louisiana, ornithologist Harry Oberholser characterized this species as “a rare winter resident...in the Gulf Coast region of Louisiana,” and at that time was not aware of any Nelson's Sparrow sightings away from coastal marshes. By 1974 (see Louisiana Birds) ornithologist George Lowery, Jr. had realized that Nelson's Sparrow was actually common during winter throughout our coastal marshes; but reported only a handful of records away from the coast – only two of which came from the northern half of the state (“at Shreveport” in October 1963 and “at Natchitoches” -- probably from the state fish hatchery -- in December 1972). Even today, if you want to see a Nelson's Sparrow, you'll probably need to hang out around cattail marshes as near to the coast as possible – in winter of course. You gotta work for this one, ya'll.

Nelson's Sparrow -- Red River NWR 28 Sept 2011

(photo by Jeff Trahan)

Davis and Trahan noted that their Nelson's Sparrows were actually feeding on the seeds of a small unidentified weed species. Fortunately, Jeff got a bird/plant photo, which he forwarded to me. Like Jeff and Terry, I had no clue as to the identity of the plant, so I forwarded the photo to botanist Charles Allen, who promptly identified it as valley redstem (Ammannia coccinea), a moist-soil plant which is actually pretty common throughout most Louisiana parishes. If you've done any tromping through wetland habitats in Louisiana, chances are you've tromped on valley redstem.

Another little-observed bird in Louisiana is the Bobolink, a member of the blackbird family that is seen in our state only during migration periods, primarly spring migration. Like Nelson's Sparrow, the Bobolink nests in the far-northern U.S. and Canada, and tends to congregate around marshes during migration. Bobolinks are champion migrants, engaging in epic 12,000+ mile round-trip annual jaunts between the northern U.S./Canada and Argentina.

Bobolink, female or young male

(photo by Paul Conover; see http://swlouisianabirds.blogspot.com/)

In Louisiana we normally see Bobolinks through a rather narrow spring migration window extending from late April through May. These days, one of the most dependable places to see them in Louisiana during that time frame is within grassy/weedy areas (such as back-beach dunes and roadsides) adjacent to marshes around Grand Isle and Port Fourchon.

During this same time period, we used to regularly find them here in south-central Louisiana in the weedy fields adjacent to the Lake Martin road south of Breaux Bridge, but those fields have since fallen to suburbia.

I'll never forget my first Bobolink sighting -- a small group of them had set down in an unplanted cotton field just south of Monroe in late spring 1979. I even heard the loud, metallic, banjo-like "bob-o-link" cries of the males in the group. Go ahead and google "male bobolink" to get a load of this dapper dude.

Bobolinks employ an elliptical migration route whereby they fly northbound directly through Louisiana and the northern Gulf Coast in spring; but on their southbound return in fall stick primarily to the Atlantic Coast. During fall, they are said to course over the eastern seaboard, island-hop through the Caribbean, then enter northern South America en route to Argentina. But in certain years they're sighted way out over the Atlantic Ocean (from Bermuda) as well, creating speculation that when the winds are right, they eschew the North American coast and possibly the Caribbean altogether, flying non-stop to South America. Watching them cut so easily through the air during spring migration through Louisiana, it's not hard to imagine them staying aloft for thousands of miles at a time, especially with a decent tailwind...

In 1974 Lowery called the Bobolink “a common spring transient” but “extremely rare this far west in fall on its return journey southward.” Here you should understand the Lowery was calling it “a common spring transient” from a field ornithologist's perspective – one who actually goes out looking for them during that narrow window of time. Otherwise, it's definitely not so “common” to more casual birders and non-birders.

Interestingly, even farther back in 1938, Oberholser called the Bobolink “fairly common in southeastern Louisiana” (rare elsewhere in Louisiana) during both spring and fall migration periods, suggesting the possibility that its continental population level then was large enough to exhibit regular “overflow” as far west as southeastern Louisiana during each fall migration period. Either that, or fall weather patterns along the Atlantic Coast were substantially different than today's. Or possibly both. Regardless, seeing Bobolinks in fall migration anywhere in Louisiana is a big thing in this day and age.

fall-migrating Bobolink (female type) sitting atop narrow-leaf sumpweed

along Lighthouse Road, western Cameron parish, LA

(photo by Paul Conover)

So guess what? Along with Nelson's Sparrows, Davis and Trahan also found Bobolinks at the Red River NWR on September 28. Whoa. And there's more. On that same day, Lafayette birders Paul Conover and Dave Patton also found Bobolinks a couple of hundred miles south of Davis and Trahan – in extreme western Cameron parish near Sabine Pass – right near the Louisiana-Texas border. Everyone involved agrees that these birds were probably blown westward off their usual eastern seaboard course by the persistent low-pressure pattern (= counterclockwise winds) that's been in place over the northeastern U.S. for much of this summer and fall. To reinforce this theory, other noted "elliptical migrants" including Black-throated Blue Warblers -- and even a Blackpoll Warbler (exceedingly rare in fall migration; recently found by Paul Conover in western Cameron parish) -- are showing up this fall in Louisiana.

ooh that smell . . .

2011-09-19T14:57:00.000-05:00

Cestrum nocturnum -- Night-blooming Jessamine

(not "Jasmine" but "Jessamine;" there's a difference...)

Beginning about five days (or, better...nights) after the 6.5” of rain we got from Tropical Storm Lee, Lydia and I were seated in our usual evening positions on the back porch. Suddenly we became overwhelmed by the penetrating perfume of Night-blooming Jessamine (Cestrum nocturnum). What with the droughty summer & all, I guess we had sort of forgotten about the two specimens planted on either side of the front/south side of our house. So dry it was, they hadn't even bothered with making flowers all season.

But on the evening of September 10 . . . BAM! Carried on a bare whiff of southerly breeze, the fragrance crept like soft fingers from Heaven some 65' to the back porch, simultaneously hitting both of us. Oh what a scent: An ancient perfume, immediately transporting us back to our childhoods, maybe all the way to our grandmothers' dressing tables. Truthfully, there's no good way that I can describe such a magical fragrance in words. . . it's just too fine for that . . . better to smell it, then you'll know exactly what I'm trying to write.

Interestingly, the genus Cestrum comes from the plant family Solanaceae – the Nightshade family – from which comes stuff like tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, eggplants, wolf-berries, horse-nettles, and such; none of which produce bloom-scents that could even remotely be described as “perfumy” or even “penetrating.” You'll notice from the photo that unlike the blooms of tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplants, night-blooming jessamine blooms are long and tubular and really hold some scent. Those of you who grow it will also notice that the closer you stick your nose to the bloom, the more pungent – almost acrid – the scent becomes. Its perfume is best-appreciated from a distance; at least 10-15' away at minimum, I'd say.

Night-blooming Jessamine Fruits

Cestrum is a New World tropical/sub-tropical genus containing about 150 species; only a few of which produce perfumy blooms. All Cestrums produce berries. Night-blooming jessamine produces fairly large, white, porcalein-like fruits that birds love. The birds then spread the seeds around, and so(w) spreads the plant. In pre-Katrina New Orleans, Cestrum nocturnum was so prevalent that most gardeners considered it a weed. Katrina's big brackish flood wiped out all of the night-blooming jessamines that it touched, however; and today, I'm sure many New Orleanians are pining away for it. In her fine book, The New Orleans Garden, Charlotte Seidenberg mentions that Cestrum nocturnum, native to the West Indies, has been grown in New Orleans since the 1700s.

This morning (19 Sept) I noticed fresh new blooms on our Sweet Olives. Hoo-Boy. The Jessamine/Sweet Olive mix just might do us in....but what a way to go, non?

For more on Sweet Olive, be sure to check out Gail Barton's recent post (http://yardflower.com/?p=3193) on her Yardflower.com blog.

tough plants for tough times...

2011-09-14T14:52:00.000-05:00

Basketgrass

Well it's been a long time coming, now here we are. Been promising this post all summer....

Our climate is changing. Here in southern Louisiana we can expect a hotter and drier climate; indeed, we've already entered into that scenario. Without steady irrigation, our typically lush, tropical gardens will be a thing of the past. Well, tropical, yes; but lush, no. I don't know about you, but I've never been one to water an ornamental garden. Don't have the time nor the inclination. So what to do? Use plants that don't need any supplemental irrigation.

Below is my 'tough plants for tough times' list for Gulf Rim gardens (zones 8-9). These plants are not only drought-tolerant, but flood-tolerant as well...which is good, since we are still prone to occasional deluges (September 3-4, tropical storm Lee for example, dumped 6.5” on our garden; twenty-four hours after which it looked like it hadn't rained at all...). Listed plants are all very long-lived as well. Most will perform beautifully for at least 15 years; and in fact most have lived in our garden for 20 or more years. Lastly, in order to make this list, plants must have BIG aesthetic appeal: long blooming season and/or excellent texture and/or foliage color.

Dwarf Bottlebrush 'Little John'

(or, if you're from New Orleans, "Lil' Jawn")

Dwarf Bottlebrush 'Little John' (Callistemon vinialis) – I believe this is an Australian native – same as the full-sized Callistemon citrinus. Survived last year's exceptionally cold winter (yeah, I know, 'what about global warming, smarty-pants?' Note that a massive high-pressure dome was parked over Alaska all last winter, not only creating one of Alaska's warmer winters on record, but also conveyor-belting arctic air deep into the U.S. interior all the while....) here in horticultural zone 8b/9a. Excellent texture; sea-green foliage hue; blooms early spring – summer. Full-sun. Butterflies/hummingbirds.

typical Bottlebrush bloom

Lantana 'Miss Huff'

a probable L. camara X L. urticoides hybrid

Lantana (Lantana camara/urticoides) – I'm not talking about the dwarfish creeping types (L. montevidensis, etc.) here – though for all I know they may be tough as well – but the naturalized shrub types that have inched their way up into the Louisiana coastal zone from Mexico and the Caribbean. L. camara is the species that old-timers know as “Ham n' Eggs”..... L. urticoides is an orange/red bloomer. Both are awesome for duration of bloom and general bad-ass toughness. Full to half-sun. Butterflies/hummingbirds.

Turk's Cap

Turk's Cap (Malvaviscus drummondii) – A hibiscus family member native to coastal Louisiana – specifically, in cheniere (live oak-dominated coastal forests). Winter-hardy all the way up to Shreveport. Runs like a Banshee in full sun, so be careful. Perfect for half-shade to bright filtered light, especially around the bases of shade trees, where little else will grow. There, it behaves itself nicely, laying down into a 3-4' groundcover. Butterflies/hummingbirds/songbirds.

Antique Rose 'Caldwell Pink'

'Caldwell Pink' Antique Rose – Amazingly, this 4' X 6' bush rarely if ever needs pruning! It barely even needs dead-heading. It's like the Ever-ready Rabbit, blooming and blooming despite drought or flood. Classed as a 'China' rose, which accounts for its everblooming habit. The only drawback is its lack of fragrance. Full-sun.

Pavonia hastata

Pavonia hastata – Pavonias are hibiscus family members. Over 270 species worldwide, including a couple of natives from the southwestern U.S. where it is commonly known as “rock rose.” P. hastata, however, is from South America. Here along the Gulf Rim it grows to about 4' X 4'. Like shrub lantana and 'Caldwell Pink' rose, it always seems to be in bloom. Should it get unruly, just cut that sucker back to about 18” and it'll straighten up and fly right. Full sun. Oddly, I have not noted much butterfly/hummer activity.

Tropical Sage

The Mighty Salvias – There are about 700 Salvia species worldwide. This is the same genus containing the herb, “sage” (Salvia officinalis). Here in the U.S., ornamental Salvias are among the best hummingbird attractors in the garden. The most beautiful Salvias hail from the mountains of Mexico, Central America, and South America; but one species, called Tropical Sage (Salvia coccinea) is native to coastal Louisiana. This species is one of the first plants that I'd recommend for a butterfly/hummingbird garden. Try to get native stock if you can. You'll see a number of cultivars offered in the trade. They're OK, but they are short-lived. Native tropical sage is sorta rangy, growing up to 5+ feet; but if you need it shorter, all you have to do is snap its weak stems down to the height you prefer. I've seen it used as a dense groundcover below live oaks, and maintained at 6” height with a weedeater. Native tropical sage will throw a lot of seed over time, developing into gorgeous clumps here and there. It's easy to transplant, easy to dead-head, and easy to weed-out. Blooms constantly. I even remember it blooming in January at our place one year. Shade to full-sun.

Anise Sage

Anise Sage (Salvia guaranitica) comes in a very close second to tropical sage on the “must have” list for butterfly/hummingbird gardens. This South American native blooms consistently spring/summer/fall here in south Louisiana. Does not seed. Shade to full-sun.

Salvia 'Argentine Skies'

Salvia 'Argentine Skies' is basically a powder-blue color form of anise sage. But anise sage makes modest clumps over the years, whereas 'Argentine Skies' runs hard. Use it to fill big spaces. Half-shade to full sun.

Horseherb

Horseherb (Calyptocarpus vialis aka Zexmenia hispidula) – is sometimes listed as a southern U.S. native, but I'm not so sure. As with Turk's cap, tropical sage, and shrub lantana, I believe that horseherb is a New World tropical species that probably got into the wild here on its own (migratory songbirds??). It showed up at our place about 20 years ago, but didn't really spread until after the Big Flood of May 2004. It's a shade-loving perennial groundcover. Lydia's scared of it. I love it...the plant, that is....not the fact that she's scared of it. I find it very easy to weed out of places where we don't want it. Lydia disagrees. We have agreed to disagree on many subjects during our 30+ years together. . .

Basket Grass

Basketgrass (Oplismenus setarius) – is yet another species from the American tropics that has naturalized here in the southern U.S. Are ya'll detecting a pattern here? Tough plants. Naturalized. If they're gonna make it, they've got to really really want to. Anyway, texturally basketgrass is a gorgeous thing. Like horseherb, it's a shade-lover. By the way, when they're in their 'happy place,' both horseherb and basketgrass colonize with enough density to preclude weeds.

Big Bluestem; producing its late-summer

bloom culms

Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) – There are quite a few native grasses that make excellent garden plants, and its so sad that so few are used. Remember: grasses impart a “flowing” texture in the garden that few other plants can match. Grasses “finish” sunny gardens, just as ferns “finish” shady gardens. Incorporating grasses and ferns is the mark of a fine garden(er). Color's cool, but texture's tops! When not in bloom, big bluestem has a fine, fountain-type growth habit. Many genetic strains have very cool gray-green foliage and colorful red-yellow joints on their bloom culms.

Dwarf Maiden Grass 'Adiago'

(admittedly, not photographed at its best...but...trust me...)

Dwarf Maiden Grass (Miscanthus sinensis 'Adagio') – Maiden grass is native to Asia and Africa, and one of the most horticulturally-developed genera in the world. Hundreds of M. sinensis cultivars have been developed over the years. A couple of these cultivars have proven to be invasive within U.S. east coast habitats; but not so in south Louisiana. My favorite maiden grass cultivar is 'Adiago,' a dwarf that grows to no more than 3' X 3'....an excellent “finishing” plant for sunny gardens.

Southern Shield Fern

(the Tropical Sage went ahead & seeded itself in)

Southern Shield Fern (Thelyptris kunthii) – A drought/flood-tolerant fern? Yep! This cosmopolitan species is native not only to Louisiana but also to the entire U.S. Gulf South, West Indies, Mexico, Central America, and down through much of South America! Pale-green – bordering on chartreuse-green – matte-finished fronds contrast beautifully with shinier, darker-green shade-loving companions. Toughest Gulf Rim fern you'll ever meet. Half-sun to full shade.

time of the moth . . .

2011-09-02T13:35:00.000-05:00

Five-Spotted Sphinx (photo by Steve Boutte)

Thanx to Monica Boutte for passing along

Steve's fine photos....and for getting me to

thinkin' about moths.

Yeah, I know. You love the butterflies but think moths are sort of creepy. After all, no one has exactly jumped at the chance to create a horror movie about a giant butterfly come to kill us all. Yet enter Mothra(!)....if it wasn't for Godzilla that big crazy nocturnal insect woulda sucked every last one of us up thru its proboscis.

big, powerful fliers; sphinx moths are often mistaken

for some sort of crepuscular hummingbirds

(photo by Steve Boutte)

(Sigh) Anyway, it's moth time down South ya'll. In fact, it's Lepidopteran time, as late-summer/early-fall always hosts the largest and most diverse appearances of both butterflies and moths here along the Gulf Rim.

The first time I visited Charlotte Seidenberg's lovely wildlife garden just a couple of blocks away from the Mississippi River in uptown New Orleans, she couldn't/wouldn't get off the subject of moths. I wanted to talk about birds. She was going on and on about her favorite mothing spots “across the lake” (Ponchartrain) and have I ever seen this moth and that moth. Moth-woman!

diurnal and definitely wasp-like, this Clear-winged Moth

defies moth protocol, but has thus far escaped moth-excommunication

(photo by Bill Fontenot)

By the same token, she immediately gained my respect and admiration for digging such decidedly un-sexy creatures (though Steve Boutte's photos, featured here, surely indicate otherwise). So what I guess I mean is that it's refreshing to hang out with people whose fascination with Nature has taken them farther than the typical “gateway species” such as southern magnolia, flowering dogwood, butterflies, hummers, and songbirds.

back to Steve Boutte's fantasmagoric Five-Spotted Sphinx...

larval form of this species is the much-hated ('cept by thousands of species

of spiders, amphibians, reptiles, and birds) Tomato Hornworm

In her excellent 1995 book, The Wildlife Garden, Charlotte states that “There are 765 species of butterflies in North America, but 10,500 known species of moths!” Huh? So what's the deal, here? That kind of disparity in species diversity indicates that....hmmmm.....moths must be ecologically important. More important than butterflies perhaps. Important as what? Well, as plant pollinators for starters; and as food items for a massive number of creatures from spiders, toads/frogs, small snakes, lizards/skinks to birds, bats and other mammals of all makes and models.

tiny geometrid moths congregate on our bedroom window

(note reflection of some sort of important television

program happening in lower left....)

I love bird ecology – the way that particular bird species situate themselves within particular habitat types; what all they do there, how they do it, and when they do it. My old college buddy Wylie Barrow is a bird ecologist at the National Wetlands Research Center here in Lafayette. We have a mutual fascination regarding which birds eat what foods and when and where they do it. It was after many hours of conversation – and many more hours of Wylie's fieldwork in the cheniere forests along coastal Cameron parish – that we came to a truly cool conclusion regarding migratory songbirds and the food items which are absolutely crucial to their survival as they make their long twice-yearly treks between the temperate and tropical Americas:

Here in coastal Louisiana, roughly the halfway point in the annual migratory route for numerous species of migratory songbirds, the arrival of the bulk of spring-migrating warblers dovetails perfectly with the peak outbreak of geometrid moth larvae (very tiny white/naked caterpillars or “worms”), which the warblers (and other songbirds) attack with gusto. By summer's end, these same geometrids only now adult moths, are out in profusion. In coastal cheneires, these tiny moths roost beneath the leaves of various plants, especially those of giant ragweed, which develops profuse thickets in coastal Louisiana. So guess what? The same warblers and other songbirds, now with offspring in tow and now coursing southward toward the tropics, stop off at the same coastal habitats and now feast on the same moth species – now adults instead of “worms” – utilizing them as a major/crucial food source in the same way that they did with the larvae in the spring.

It's all just so uncannily amazing.

Once you think about it, however, especially from an evolutionary/survival-of-the-fittest perspective, it becomes apparent that those migratory birds which time their stateside arrivals and departures to coincide with geometrid moth outbreaks are the ones that ultimately survive best, passing their now-hardwired sense of migratory timing on to their descendents via DNA. The same scenario holds true for all traveling animals. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are another example. How is it that they know to hold off on their northbound trans-gulf spring migration route until stateside native nectar sources such as red buckeye, eastern coralbean, and trumpet honeysuckle come into bloom? Are they geniuses or something? Have they engineered such solutions via computers and think-tanks and what-have-you?

Nope. More like idiot-savants: they just do what their Creator tells them to do. Creation has never stopped, ya'll. If it did, animals would no longer know what to eat and when and where to eat it. No, the process continues, with new life forms evolving by the year...by the day...really, moment to moment in time.

Self-conscious ever-analyzing humans find such revealations “amazing,” “incredible,” and “genius.”

“Meanwhile,” as Bob Dylan sang, “life goes on all around us.” It's just another day in paradise...

Vine Sphinx

(photo by Steve Boutte)

I don't want to end this post without bragging a lil' more on Charlotte Seidenberg and her talents not only as a naturalist but as a writer as well. She ain't no spring chicken (I know she's older than me, for example...) but in her love for all living things she's more like a kid than an adult. She even looks more like a kid than an adult. She grew up but she never grew out of that innate fascination with Nature that all of us are born with. In demeanor, she's on the shy side – unless she's talking or writing about Nature. Then she becomes a firey preacher: “...I defy you not to become as intrigued as I with indigenous plants and animals...I defy you not to be as fascinated as I with the complexity and beauty of our native insect life....My garden is becoming a place for learning about the natural world. And the more I know the more I want to know...” she writes in the introduction of The Wildlife Garden.

I know she'd be embarrassed if she read this; but she echos the sentiments of so many of us, particularly in the darkening times in which we live today.

Charlotte writes from a first-person perspective, peppering her books with personal stories. That's what makes them so repeatedly readable. But then she also researches her topics to within inches of their lives. Check out her The New Orleans Garden (1990) for example. I know she had to be cross-eyed for at least a few months after all the microfiche she must have perused in order to determine earliest dates of introduction for three centuries' worth of the hundreds of plants entering the garden scene in New Orleans. Ditto for The Wildlife Garden. Read 'em; and I defy you to believe otherwise.

Oh, and . . . Long Live the Moth!

summer's end...

2011-08-17T15:28:00.000-05:00

“...porch-ful of squash & pumkins

summer's always really somethin'

then fall arrives with a chilly dawn.....”

-- Greg Brown

It always happens so suddenly that it tends to startle us, even after 34 years of living in the woods: you slog thru another steamy searingly hot summer and suddenly one fine morning comes a change. A very subtle change in weather, accompanied by a more unmistakable a change in sounds.

This year The Change occurred the morning of August 15. We shuffle onto the back porch, coffees in hand, ease down into our wal-mart chairs, and bam! Where's the noise??

We're cozied up to a large tract of bottomland hardwood forest within the Bayou Vermilion floodplain – actually/geologically, the combined floodplains of Bayous Vermilion, St. Clair, & Teche (God! What're we doing here??) – so things are still pretty wild here...tons of birds, lizards, snakes, coyote, etc. On normal summer mornings our backyard is a veritable avian Times Square, with hummingbirds, woodpeckers, cardinals, chickadees, titmice, wrens, buntings, finches, rushing about, having breakfast, and hollering like it's the last or first day of their lives. The cardinals and wrens are always the loudest – often obscenely-loud, waking us with their songs thru shut windows and droning air-conditioner – and joined with the tinier songs of the others, the combined noise forces us to speak to one another louder than we'd like at that time of day.

"So didja sleep ok last nite? (pause; no reply) So DIDJA?"

"Huh? What's that y'said?"

Carolina Wren -- Gram for gram, the loudest mouth of the bunch

(photo by Dave Patton, or Beth Erwin or maybe somebody else)

On normal summer mornings added as a symphonic backdrop to the bird cacaphony are the many-layered choruses of cicadas, usually working at decibel levels akin to those of the cardinals and wrens. And their verses are staggered, similar to our 'Row Row Row Yer Boat' song, so that they drone on and on without a break, first climbing higher and then back down the ladder. This cicada symphony itself is backed by a mysterious low-frequency, whirring chorus of some other kind of insect. I've always assumed its origin is some sort of cricket species, but I really don't know. Because it is so absolutely and perfectly continious....whirring on, nonstop, at a single pitch, hour after hour....i sometimes fantasize that it is the actual song-voice of the Universe.

Come late July and August things just keep getting more hectic. By then, young birds of all makes and models join their parents in song, effectively bolstering the noise factor by half or more. Early fall migrants such as flycatchers, gnatcatchers, and vireos turn up looking for food, water, and short rests – and all hollering as well. Migrating hummingbirds horn in on the local hummer scene, cause much consternation and pandemonium, with screaming and chasing ensuing throughout the daylight hours.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

(photo by Dave Patton)

As the heat of each day sets in, vireos become more and more consistent with their vocalizations: repetitious hum-drum sing-songs monotonously cycling until peak heat arrives (ca. 3-4pm) when they finally shut it down for a couple of hours. Even more than cicada songs, vireo songs will mesmerize any listener, human and critter alike, to the point of hypnosis and then slumber. Which is all good, since that's precisely what everyone should be doing during that particular intensity of heat.

Red-eyed Vireo

(photo by Matt Conn)

Anyway, imagine then a morning when you wake up and suddenly all of the noise (save for the mysterious whirring one) is gone; or at least drastically modified to the point where you have to focus in order to hear anything at all (besides the mysterious whirring one, that is).

On the morning of August 15, the best that the backyard could muster (besides the mysterious whirring noise) was a few muted cardinal “chits” and maybe a few “cheets” from the finches, chickadees, and titmice – all coming not from the backyard, but now from deeper in the surrounding woods; as if they're all now suddenly become shy and reserved. And no one was in the breakfast line over at the seed feeders. The cicada chorus gets to a very late start, now droning quite a bit lower and slower and unenthusiastically tailing off almost as soon as it begins.

Suddenly then, there is more silence than noise. The effect, as previously mentioned, is physically and emotionally startling. Aha! Where are you, autumn? We feel you out there somewhere!

Dawn on August 15 also began with a noticeable drop in temperature and humidity; and you swear you can feel a hint of a breeze. Yes! And from the north! Well....from the west-northwest....but we'll take it! As the day progresses the breeze, faint as it is, stirs a few migratory hawks over the place. We hear the piercing whistles of Broad-winged Hawks to our north, between the forest canopy and the crawfish ponds; and the songbirds scatter as a Cooper's Hawk crashes through the woods.

young Broad-winged Hawk

(photo by James Beck [i think])

adult Cooper's Hawk pounces

they strike like lightning

(photo by Larry Amy)

Come midday butterflies appear in numbers we haven't seen in a good while – mainly giant swallowtails, checkerspots, and the first of what will become a massive wave of gulf fritillaries by the end of the month – all competing with the transient hummingbirds for nectar from the salvias, turk's caps, obedient plants, and buttonbushes in the beds surrounding the house.

Checkerspot

Fritillary

Yep, summer's on its way out, ya'll. Long live the fall! We know it's out there somewhere...........

back to the island...

2011-07-25T11:10:00.000-05:00

Caspian Tern

(photo by Russ Norwood http://www.theperceptivist.com/)

Listen, I promise that I'll get to that “tough plants for tough times” post......it's just that, well, Molly “Eagle Eye” Richard and I did a fun/interesting bird trip to Grand Isle last week, and I got some decent photos of it and so just had to write it up.

Molly "Eagle Eye" Richard Scanning the Gulf of Mexico

Really, she barely needs binoculars...

I'd been needing to go to Grand Isle all summer in order to procure habitat/bird photos for a writing project that I'm in the middle of. I happened to run into Molly (Lafayette birder who owns a camp in GI), told her of my dilemna, and didn't need to twist her arm.

We drove down on July 21, having the usual fine time laughing and singing along to the hits of yesteryear on Molly's favorite oldies station. By the time we hit Port Fourchon, where the birding/photographing would begin, the weather had turned to awesome: 88F with a mild southwesterly breeze thrown in for good measure; mostly cloudy skies nicely blocking that mean old sun, and featuring very cool, darker blue-gray columns of rain showers miles away in almost every direction. Let the birding/photographing begin!

Port Fourchon; mowed marsh (foreground), industry on parade (background)

Sometimes Birding Can Become Quite Surreal, Y'Know?

Port Fourchon is a heavily industrialized oilfield warehousing and transportation terminal plopped right over the marsh, leaving pockets of natural habitat interspersed throughout. Birding there is weird-but-usually-good. The big deal at Port Fourchon on July 21 was Common Nighthawks. They were everywhere: on wires, fences, and directly on the ground – mostly around large limestoned parking and storage areas. Eventually we tallied 50 of them there; more than either of us had seen before in one locale.

Common Nighthawk, Resting on Mudflat

Next we hit Elmer's Island, actually a sandy peninsula featuring hunks of marsh and marsh pools, a nice beach, and a large lagoon. It was noontime, and large aggregations of seabirds were crowded together loafing in the lagoon.

Gang of Brown Pelicans

Loafing in the Lagoon

Overhead, Magnificent Frigatebirds were soaring way up in the sky, working the breeze like it was their personal plaything.

Magnificent Frigatebird Toying with the Breeze

(too bad the image is small; google for better picture...)

By the time we hit Grand Isle State Park on the eastern edge of the island, bird activity had lulled to near-nonexistent, with only mockingbirds and Eastern Kingbirds flitting around the dune brush. We didn't observe a single seabird on the beach. But the skies were still spectacular and the seas were nearly glass-calm.

Adult Clapper Rail Feeding Young

Departing the park, we spied an adult Clapper Rail, a salt-marsh specialist, rounding up tiny land crabs and feeding them to its young. Taking photos for 15-20 minutes, we eventually saw two adults and 4-5 fuzzy, black-plumaged young.

Young Clapper Rail

On cue, the Stones' "Paint it Black" was pouring from

Molly's oldies station at the time...

Even for biophiles who look hard to see the beauty in all living things, it's hard to find anything but goofiness about a young rail. At best, they resemble the illegitimate children of Big Bird. I reckon you'd have to look directly into the eye of a young rail to find the real Truth/Beauty that resides there.

Almost as an afterthought, we decided to check the “Exxon Fields” for shorebirds on the way back to Molly's camp. Now owned by a smaller petroleum processor, this large complex of marsh chunks dotting short-grass fields has traditionally yeilded fine shorebirding. Several weeks earlier, during the peak of the drought, Molly had checked this area out and found it totally dry, with hardly even any living vegetation in the short-grass fields. Since then, however, the rains began, and today featured expansive pools of shallow water and lushly-recovering grasses and forbs, and filled with laughing gulls, willets, black-necked stilts, and numerous sandpipers including the uncommon Short-billed Dowitcher.

Black-necked Stilts Feeding at "Exxon Fields"

Like Clapper Rails, Short-billed Dowitchers are salt-marsh lovers. And because salt-marsh habitats are relatively difficult to access, these two species (as well as Seaside Sparrow) are less observed by the regular birding public.

Bathing Laughing Gulls (foreground) and loafing Short-billed Dowitchers (far background)

Non-breeders in Louisiana, Short-billed Dowitchers occur here mainly in winter, foraging in very small groups in salt-marshes and mangrove swamps. Only rarely are they found in larger groups during spring and fall migration periods, when lucky birders can even find them inland, especially in the ricefield country of southwestern Louisiana. Eventually, Molly and I counted over 160 fall-migrating Short-billed Dowitchers at the Exxon Fields that afternoon – again, more than either of us had ever counted in a single locale in Louisiana.

So now we had accumulated impressive personal high-counts on Common Nighthawk and Short-billed Dowitcher, and probably Clapper Rail (13) as well, all – as the Kinks would sing – on “a lazy summer day.”

Black Skimmer or "Bec a' Ciseaux" en Francais

(photo by Russ Norwood http://www.theperceptivist.com/

The last bird of the day -- one of Molly's all-time favorite species -- was a Black Skimmer, foraging in a tiny salt-marsh pool just off the back deck of her camp.

wests on da' nest...

2011-07-19T10:46:00.000-05:00

Western Kingbird, 2.5mi NW of Breaux Bridge

06 July 2011; note dangling nest pieces, lower left

(photo by Bill Fontenot)

Even though it's always “now,” time sure does fly, y'know?

I've been wanting to post a 'tough plants for tough times' gardening piece; and even though recent rains have temporarily quashed The Big Dry that we've been experiencing here over the past several years, I promise to get around to that one. For now, though, the big nature news down here around Lafayette is Gary Broussard's recent discovery of nesting Western Kingbirds just northwest of Breaux Bridge.

He first observed an adult bird on May 22 at a big pasture/powerline complex at the corner of d'Augereaux Rd. X Saw Mill Hwy (LA 354), and emailed me about it, as we both live in the vicinity. Though interesting, this was no big deal, since Western Kingbirds are pretty much “expected” throughout much of Louisiana, especially during migration periods.

But when he saw it again at the same place around noon on June 05, things began to get interesting. Rare nesters in Louisiana, mostly confined to several pairs annually up in the Shreveport area, where landscape values more closely match those of its more usual Great Plains/western U.S. breeding range, any Western Kingbird seen in our state in the month of June is a potential candidate for breeding/nesting. Any nesting noted anywhere outside of northwestern Louisiana would be big news indeed.

When he saw it again at the same place on July 04, that was enough for me. On the following evening (July 05), I went out there, camera-equipped, with grandson Bernie Robichaux tagging along. A thunderstorm had just passed, and thanx to Bernie's sharp eyes we saw two birds further east on d'Augereaux Road, both perched high on nearby mega-powerlines, yet widely separated. So I didn't get a chance to do any photographing. Thankfully, Gary had succeeded in photographing one bird earlier that day, watching it feed at least one nestling at a nest lodged on a crossbar of a wooden power pole on the road side. He also saw the second bird at that time. Returning at noon that same day, he was able to get a photo that showed one adult and the rubbery yellow/red bill of one nestling poking out of the nest. Now that's an outstanding job of documentation. Good on ya' mate.

05 July 2011; note one nestling's mouth just above the crossbar (lower right)

photo by Gary Broussard

Due to his cavalieresque propensity for finding interesting birds, I used to call Gary a Bird Dog; but over the years I've come to realize that he's much more of a Bird Whisperer. Rare birds simply want to show themselves to him. They throw themselves at his feet, praying that he'll at least glance at them.

Anyway, I finally got decent photos of one adult and the nest at 7:30pm (July 06) as I was heading out to see/hear the fabulous Cathead Biscuit Boys at Cafe' des Amis in Breaux Bridge. Traffic was light at that time, and I could park near the nest, and the sun/light was in my favor. On the evening of July 09, Bernie, his sister Lauren and I, returned to check on the birds, seeing one adult on the crossbar, the other on the nest.

06 July 2011; one adult at (relative) ease, the other (hidden) on the nest

(photo by Fontenot)

Time ticked and Gary stuck with it, observing a second nestling in the early morning hours of July 12. Finally, around noon on July 14, he snapped this awesome photo of the two nestlings – now fledglings – perched vulnerably-low ([sigh]; as fledglings often do...) on the fence below the nest “with parents looking on nervously.”

Western Kingbird fledglings, 14 July 2011

Free at Last, Free at Last...

(photo by Gary Broussard)

Away from the Shreveport area, there are precious few June records of Western Kingbird – the month in which nesting should be strongly suggested, if not confirmed. On June 20, 1970, New Orleans birder Dan Purrington saw an individual in St. Landry parish, three miles north of Lebeau; and most recently (June 06, 2008) a bird was observed by Lafayette bird biologist Bill Vermillion on West Etienne Road in Vermilion parish, about seven miles north of LA 14 between Abbeville and Kaplan.

As far as we know, though, the only other recorded/confirmed instance of Western Kingbird nesting in south Louisiana came on June 11, 1966, when A. W. Palmisano spied a nest attended by two adults at Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge (coastal Cameron parish). By June 23 he noted one adult still incubating on the nest, but the ultimate fate of this attempt was not resolved.

In Louisiana, the Western Kingbird is classed as a “rare to casual (= “occasional” = not observed/recorded every year)” spring and fall migrant; casual in winter; and an uncommon breeder in the Red River ag lands around Shreveport. Louisiana's first-ever record of Western Kingbird dates back just about as far as our records go: an early-April sighting at Barataria Bay in 1837 by none other than John James Audubon.

whoops!

2011-06-07T09:48:00.000-05:00

Whooper Watchers: (L) Ezra Pound, (R) T.S. Eliot

(photo by Mark Manuel)

Much like the American buffalo/bison, the Whooping Crane was once a substantial component of North America's post-Pleistocene fauna. Turns out that both species have pitifully failed to adapt to “civilized” humanity and the indelible marks that it has subsequently made on the North American landscape.

Not so very long ago, Whooping Cranes were common on our continent, ranging from New Jersey west to Utah, and from the Arctic coast southward to the central Mexican coast – Louisiana included. As late as 1899, famed Texas biologist Vernon Bailey characterized them as “common” in the prairies of Jeff Davis parish near Iowa, LA.

It is said that the advent of mechanized agriculture – and particularly the draining of the marshes and wet prairies – is what did the whoopers in. By 1941 only 15-20 birds remained continent-wide, including six birds in an isolated non-migratory colony just north of White Lake in southwestern Louisiana. By 1950, the last surviving member of the Louisiana colony was trapped and transported to the migratory colony that winters each year on the central Texas coast. Alas, shortly after its arrival it was killed by a coyote . . .

Whooping Cranes are about 5' tall, with 7.5' wingspans & weigh about 15lbs

(photo by Mark Manuel)

A Whooping Crane restoration program was initiated shortly thereafter. Today, after 60 years of work, around 400 whoopers exist in the wild, limited to one larger migratory colony that annually commutes between its Saskatchewan breeding grounds and wintering grounds in coastal Texas, as well as a small, introduced colony located in central Florida. An additional 150 individuals are kept in captive breeding programs in several locations in the U.S. and Canada.

Four Runaway Whoopers at the Cazan's Lake complex

Northeastern Evangeline parish; 28 May 2011

In mid-February of this year (2011) ten young Whooping Cranes were transported to White Lake (western Vermilion parish), the last known Louisiana location of the historical flock, in an effort to re-establish a non-migratory colony in Louisiana. Three months later, four of the ten whoopers had elected to relocate themselves about 65 miles northeast of the original reintroduction site at White Lake, to David Fontenot's rice farm in northeastern Evangeline parish.

David Fontenot, Mac Myers, Mark Manuel

Talkin' Whoopers

On May 26, a week after David had discovered the whoopers at his place, I received a call from old childhood buddy Mark Manuel. He had run into David somewhere, and David had told him the story. Knowing that I'd be interested. Mark called with an invitation to check out the birds at David's farm.

David farms the old “Cazan's Lake” complex, due east of and contiguous with Chicot State Park. Together, these two natural areas hold about 10,000 acres of wetlands and woodlands, much of it inaccessible to all but a few people. This area was a big part of my own stomping grounds back in the day. In fact, Cazan's Lake (actually an amalgamation of several different lakes and swamps surrounded by rice fields and bordered by Bayous Chicot and Cocodrie) once hosted a hunting/fishing club, of which I was a member in the 1960s.

Concerned that my camera might not be quite up to snuff, I invited long-time Louisiana birder Mac Myers along, as I knew his camera was better than mine. Fortunately, Mark brought his camera along as well, and between the three of us we came up with an acceptable – if not artistic – batch of pictures.

The weather was fine, the landscape gorgeous; and it was a real treat to not only see Whooping Cranes (for the first time in my life) but also to reconnect with David and Mark.

Fortunately for us, but unfortunately for them, the birds are not very wary, at times allowing us to get within 50 yards of them. We all wondered aloud what would become of these beautiful creatures once hunting season begins.

David did the right thing, immediately contacting Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries to tell them what he had found. Days later, two Whooping Crane Reintroduction Program specialists arrived to document the birds, assuring David that they would be back on a weekly basis to check on them.

What are you gonna do, you know? Birds have wings. And minds of their own. And whoopers have relatively ancient genetics – hardwired for who-knows-what? Continental drifting, would be one guess.
For now, these birds looked to be steadily foraging (we could not determine exactly what they were eating) and looked to be quite content.

So it's like my dad -- and favorite hunting/fishing partner -- used to say: “We shall see what we shall see . . .”

the gift that keeps on giving...

2011-05-25T14:47:00.000-05:00

Four or five years ago, when Lydia and I still had the native plant nursery, we had a dozen or so bare-root live oak seedlings left over from a job. At that time I knew that Louis and Ashlee Michot were planting trees around their new place between Grand Coteau and Arnaudville, so I called them up to come and get the oak seedlings. We couldn't synchronize our schedules so I told them that I'd leave the seedlings in our potting area and they could just come and pick them up at their convenience.

Eventually they did come to get the oaks; and as an afterthought I guess, Louis heeled in (half-buried) a handful of wildflower seedlings in a pot of bark mulch lying around the potting area. We were really busy with stuff back then, so those seedlings had to fend for themselves, surviving in that pot of bark mulch without any supplemental fertilizer or water. In fact, they had to survive there for over a year before Lydia finally rescued them and planted them in her “herb wheel” on the west side of the yard.

Over the years, I didn't take much note of them. Then, this past spring they forced me to notice them via the sheer beauty of their blooms – and their numbers. Turned out to be prairie larkspurs (Delphinium carolinianum; aka “Carolina Larkspur”). In the intervening three years they had spread nicely, seeding themselves throughout the whole herb wheel.

little miracles

So I recently called Louis to get the story on the larkspurs. He barely remembered the details, but apparently, he had snatched up a handful of them as his band (the fabulous Lost Bayou Ramblers) was journeying home from a gig in Texas. They must have still been in his vehicle when he stopped to pick up the oak seedlings.

Larkspurs belong to the Ranunculus or Crowfoot plant family, a large group comprised of over 1,000 species – most of them very showy bloomers. Other Crowfoot family members include buttercups, Clematis, columbines, meadow-rues, and Anemones. There are over 150 species of larkspurs alone. Here in North America, we probably have 50-75 species and subspecies.

call for auditions!

2011-05-11T09:28:00.000-05:00

"ALRITE!" A Two-Act Quasi-Musical

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD TO YOUR MUSICAN/ACTING FRIENDS!!!!

Auditions will be held on Sunday, May 15 (3pm) and Wednesday, May 18 (6pm) at Cite' des Arts in Lafayette for the play, “Alrite!” scheduled to run at Cite' on August 25-28 and September 1-4, 2011.

(Dear regular readers, please forgive/indulge me this off-topic post. This site/blog is the best that I can do to detail this important announcement.....)

The Play

Not exactly a musical, “Alrite!” is a Two-Act play about a group of former professional musicians who've lost their “day jobs” and have ended up back in their hometown, to find that their old band leader is still performing around town. “Alrite!” will feature nine original songs, instrumentally/vocally performed by the actors themselves. There are also a few non-musician roles involved.

Writer: Bill Fontenot Director: Christy Leichty Musical Director: Bruce MacDonald

Stage Manager: Jim Phillips

The Cast

JEANNIE: woman 45-55 yrs old; Rock Singer

UNCLE RICK: man 55-60 yrs old; Rock Guitarist

DON: man 45-55 yrs old; Singer/Acoustic Guitarist

TOM: man 45-55 yrs old; Singer/Rock Bassist

MIKE: man 45-55 yrs old; Rock Bassist

DANNY: man 25-35 yrs old; Rock Drummer

CHERRIE: woman 45-55 yrs old; Bartender

CECIL: man 20-60 yrs old; Radio Station Tech

GAIL: woman 40-60 yrs old; Radio Station Manager

UN-NAMED AIRLINE EMPLOYEE: man or woman any age

UN-NAMED OLD CAJUN COUPLE: man and woman 60-80 yrs old

The Commitment

Rehearsals begin in June and will continue through July and August, through show time.

For More Information

Contact Bill Fontenot, natrldlite@cox.net 337.896.9187(h) 337.852.5576(c)

Christy Leichty, christyleichty@gmail.com 337.290.1549

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD TO YOUR MUSICIAN FRIENDS!!!!!!

by any other name.......

2011-04-29T12:33:00.000-05:00

Rosa mysterioso

     My Mom's name is Rose. Between 1965-1995 she maintained a really nice hybrid-tea rose garden. So I grew up around roses, literally and figuratively.

     And then there's that mysterious rose tattoo that appeared on my right arm on July 04, 1976 – the day after our great nation's bicentennial – after a Hunter Thompson-esque trip to Leesville/Fort Polk, LA. I first noticed the tatto on July 05, upon waking up in my underwear on the parlor floor of my buddy Mark's grandma's house in the notorious little farming community of Point Blue, Louisiana. Wandering into his grandma's kitchen (headed for the bathroom) I quickly realized that it was not early in the morning, as I had thought. It was in fact after lunch; and I was greeted by not only Mark's grandma, but also a number of her friends – all gathered around the kitchen table, and busy playing cards, drinking whiskey-laced black coffee and smoking cigarettes rolled out of paper bags. "What's wrong, cher? You don't know where you are? What's dat on your arm?" We all had a good laugh. O but I digress. . .

     What I mean to say is that I guess I was destined to become a rose affectionado. And that really came to pass in 1990, when wife Lydia brought home our first antique rose. Now roses, modern roses included, are known for their fragrance; but for the most part, modern roses all possess a very similar fragrance. Very nice, but homogeneous. Each antique rose, on the other hand, possesses its very own unique fragrance, as well as its very own unique flower structure. The first time I sniffed an antique, I was instantly hooked. Aromatherapy is real, ya'll.

     Antique roses are divided into a number of classes, including Hybrid Musk, Multiflora, Bourbon, China, Noisette, Gallica, Moss, Tea, Hybrid Perpetual, Polyantha, and more. Think of them as fine wines, each variety and blend with its own distinctive characteristics.

     When planning for rose-gardening, almost as important as knowing individual cultivar name and classification is knowing individual cultivar bloom season. Bloom season categories include “ever-blooming” (blooms nearly year round, taking the occasional “rest” during periods of unfavorable weather), “twice-blooming” (usually during spring and fall), and “once-blooming” (usually in spring). And of course it pays to study up on old rose varieties/cultivars that do best in your particular region. One of the better resources for the lower South is Dr. William Welch's Antique Roses for the South (Taylor Publishing 1990).

     Presently, Lydia and I have about 22 “old rose” cultivars growing around our place. Here are some of our favorites:

the humble 'Old Blush'

By 1000 B.C., the Chinese were already breeding fancy, double-flowered garden roses. The first of these everblooming China roses to reach the U.S. was 'Old Blush' in 1752. Because of its everblooming habit, because it is so sturdy, and because of its ancient lineage, I suggest that every Deep South antique rose collection should begin with this one.

uber-fragrant 'Champneys' Pink Cluster'

'Champneys' Pink Cluster' is a noisette, introduced in the early 19th century. The noisettes were the first antique rose class to originate in the U.S.; and 'Champneys' Pink Cluster' was the first noisette to be hatched. John Champneys, a rice farmer in Charleston, S.C., crossed 'Old Blush' with a popular European Musk Rose, and BAM! Everblooming (thanks to 'Old Blush'), and perhaps the most penetratingly fragrant old rose that I know. You don't even have to lay your nose on a bloom. You'll be smelling Champneys' Pink perfume long before then. Our specimen is a willowy, 8-foot, vase-shaped shrub.

'Sombreuil' ..... saucer-sized blooms!

The Tea Roses all originated from a native Himalayan species, Rosa gigantea, known for its superb fragrance and huge flowers; crossed with a China rose, and BAM AGAIN! You've got a heavy-flowered, heavy-perfumed, everblooming killer-rose. 'Sombreuil' (introduced 1850) is about as good as it gets – except for its bad-ass play-for-keeps thorns. It is a modest climber (8-10'), and blooms biggest/heaviest in spring, featuring saucer-sized blooms. Outside of spring, it blooms sporadically, and with flowers half or less the size of its spring offerings.

'Souvenir de la Malmasion'.....da' queen of 'em all

Bourbon Roses arose (ahem) from a natural cross between 'Old Blush' and 'Autumn Damask' a European rose. The hybrid plant was born in a mixed rose hedge on Reunion Island (once known as Isle de Bourbon). The Bourbon class was then developed in France. The queen of this class is 'Souvenir de la Malmaison' (1843), named in honor of the empress Josephine (a' Napoleon), herself a fine rosarian, at Malmaison, her country estate outside of Paris.

Mysterious 'Maggie'

Personally, 'Maggie' is my favorite Bourbon. In fact, it is my favorite rose, period. 'Maggie' is somewhat shrouded in mystery...sort of like my tattoo...experts believe her to be a Bourbon, but have no idea from when and where she might hail. Bill Welch is crazy about 'Maggie' too. He got his first 'Maggie' cutting (though he had no idea of her name at the time) in 1980, from a farmhouse near Mangham, LA. Welch says the flower fragrance is heavy with black pepper. Me, I get a heavy fruit scent from it. Real heavy/tangy; like maybe with a strong dash of apricot.

'Russell Cottage Rose'

If I remember right, 'Russell Cottage Rose' was the first old rose that Lydia brought home in 1990. Originally introduced in the early 19th century, this Rosa multiflora (a Japanese native, I believe) hybrid is a once-bloomer; but oh what a once-bloomer it is! Lydia gets a raspberry vibe from its heavily fruit-perfume scent. I agree. Welch describes the scent as "intense Damask."

little Miss 'Clotilde Soupert'....petals thin as tissue paper

Polyantha roses developed naturally, as hybrids between Rosa multiflora and China roses. During the 1860s, the French refined this class into “shrub roses” meant for use as landscape hedges. My favorite Polyantha is 'Clotilde Soupert' introduced in 1890. She's a 4' shrub. I was warned that her delicate blooms “ball” in rainy weather, but I went ahead and planted her anyway. And yes, her blooms do ball in rainy weather, but she's so damn worth it! Ultimately, she's such a prolific bloomer, especially in spring, that a set or two of balled flower clusters is no big deal. Just lop 'em off. Gorgeous.

a 25-foot wall of Rosa 'Trier' and Chinese Fringe Flower (Loropetalum sp.) protects our veggie garden from the west...................

'Trier's' medicine-y bloom cluster

Talking about hedge roses, 'Trier' (1904) is the greatest of them all. She's got thorns as sharp and hooked as a blackberry's, but I love her anyway. She is one of the parents of the Hybrid Musk class. Welch's book lists 'Trier' as “5-7 feet” but in our blackjack clay, she morphed into a 9'x15' monster. She's a twice-bloomer, and her blooms possess a strangely medicinal scent – like maybe old-school, black cherry cough-syrup.

tails (heh) of bird love

2011-04-17T12:20:00.000-05:00

adult male Northern Cardinal

(photo by Beth Erwin)

“...chestnut-brown canary, ruby-throated sparrow

sing a song, don't be long, thrill me to the marrow.”

-- Stephen Stills

Down here in the bottomland hardwoods of northeastern Lafayette parish the Northern Cardinal flock comprises the backbone of our backyard bird population. I have no real idea about how many cardinals live and/or visit our backyard on a daily basis, but on one particular day this past winter I remember counting 36 males simultaneously perched in the bare trees and shrubs around our main seed-feeder station. So it's safe to say that we've come to learn a lot about Northern Cardinals over the past 28 years. But not everything.

On the morning of April 8, as I sat with coffee on our back porch, I was treated to a slice of cardinal behavior that I had never before witnessed.

female northern cardinal (young)

(photo by Russ Norwood http://www.theperceptivist.com/)

It all started when a couple of female cardinals lit in the little double-blush althea tree at the edge of the porch, about 12-feet from me.

foolishly-young Northern Cardinal

(photo by Russ Norwood http://www.theperceptivist.com/)

Directly, a young male, doubtlessly bursting with love in his heart (and loins), careened into the althea, nearly knocking one of the females over upon landing. With the offended female flitting over to the adjacent Oriental buttonbush, the young male immediately turned his attention to the remaining female. Sitting about 18” from her, and staring ardently into her eyes, he stretched his big head as tall as he could, erected his crest as vertical as he could, and began swaying from side to side as he emitted his song of love: “See-ah Chee-ah Chee-ah...Chee-Row!Chee-Row!Chee-Row!Chee-Row!”

She waited around for one encore before flitting away to the big cypress tree, unimpressed. The male immediately jumped over the the Oriental buttonbush and the remaining female, but she didn't even let him get started before joining the other female in the big cypress.

male Prothonotary Warbler (with black cherry)

(photo by Russ Norwood http://www.theperceptivist.com/ )

     To add injury to insult, a local male Prothonotary Warbler – obviously miffed that the young cardinal had unknowingly interloped upon his personal performance space – shot into the buttonbush and promptly nipped the poor youngster on the tail. Astonished, but still very much preoccupied with the females in the big cypress, the young male gave a quick startled look at the Prothonotary, who nipped him again; this time chasing him up and finally off of the branch he was occupying.

     Not only had I never seen a Prothonotary Warbler assaulting a cardinal, but I had also never seen a male cardinal's courtship performance – what with the swaying and erecting and singing what I had always assumed was an “alternate” territorial song. So now I'm thinking that the abovementioned song is actually the true courtship song, whereas the more common/familiar “Cheer!-Cheer!-Cheer!...Purdy!Purdy!Purdy!Purdy!”that most of us associate with the Northern Cardinal must be its territorial song – the song it uses to let other males and females alike know where his turf is.

     I tell ya', Nature just keeps comin' at ya', you know? No matter how often and how careful of a Nature-watcher one is, there's always something new waiting around the corner.

     Speaking of which, an even-more-amazing bird-love-event recently descended upon my buddy Larry Amy, who lives on Bayou Vermilion in the city of Lafayette. Larry's got a cool digital sound system for the house as well as the patio out back. So the other day he's sitting out back and he fires up a song by the Buena Vista Social Club through the patio speakers.

young Brown Thrasher

(photo by Beth Erwin)

     Immediately, a male Brown Thrasher begins scurrying through the backyard bushes, then jets up to a bare spot at the top of an old American elm – the highest/clearest/closest perch to the patio – and begins singing his head off.

     Now, Brown Thrashers are pretty shy and discreet birds. Unlike cardinals, they are not in the habit of popping up into plain sight – except, that is, during breeding season, when males will occasionally sit up at the tops of trees (usually limited to the early morning hours) and sing their beautiful mocking-bird-like songs.

     Sufficiently amazed, Larry turned the music off. The bird immediately stopped singing. Waiting awhile, Larry turned the music back on. The bird immediately started singing again. Larry told me about this. I suggested he try the same song on a succeeding day to see what happens. He did. And so did the thrasher. I asked him if he had tried any other songs besides the Buena Vista Social Club. He did. The thrasher did not.

rainmaker, rainmaker

2011-04-01T18:18:00.000-05:00

rainmaker, rainmaker

the sky is gray, the ground is so hard

it's been cracked by the sun

rainmaker, you know my work's never done

– Steve Winwood/Jim Capaldi

I guess the wheels really started turning on the morning of Tuesday, March 29 when I heard Traffic's “Rainmaker” spun on the local public radio station (KRVS...give it a listen...it streams on the www; and check out Traffic's music on youtube or wherever while you're at it...they're awfully good...) by master musicologist/producer/disc jockey Cecil Doyle. We hadn't had a decent rain here for nearly a month. The local plants and animals were begging for it. Pollen had saturated the air so thickly that it was coating cars/windshields/houses/sinuses on a daily basis.

Most people give but little notice to such things; but farmers, gardeners, outdoorsmen, nature-watchers, and others whose livelihoods are directly affected by too much or too little rain are acutely aware of them.

“Rainmaker” became my prayer that Tuesday morning. God, please make us some rain. Many of our plants had no sooner put on leaves and already they were flagging for lack of moisture. That morning the first of “our” Prothonotary Warblers had shown up at the house. He flew right up to the deck, sat on top of the old camelia there, and sang out his joy. Directly, he flew down into the coulee to check out his brown-painted-inverted-plastic-water-bottle house I had set on a pole some years ago. Then he flew into his old drinking/bathing dish that Lydia sets out on the porch rail for him and the chickadees. Oops. Dry as bone. Hmm.

By Tuesday afternoon the forecasted “scattered thunderstorms” fired up to our north. We received no more than a spit, barely coating the leaves of the local plants. Even so, it was enough for the Prothonotary to bathe in. Even before the drizzle had stopped, he had positioned himself directly beneath a big camelia leaf, half-fluttering his wings in an effort to spread the meager moisture at the sides of the leaf over as much of himself as possible.

By evening we hadn't received any more rain. It looked to be yet another “near-miss” Pacific frontal passage. We've had a lot of them lately. By 11:00pm, storms had again fired up to our north, lighting the sky with constant flashes, but nary a drop of rain on us. Bummer, man.

Then suddenly, 'round midnight, here it came. We finally got a good soaking – over an inch anyway. Yes! We'll take it. Thanks be to the Rainmaker.

The next morning I eagerly hit the back porch to see how the local plants and birds made out. The first thing that I noticed was that all of the newly-emerging leaves of the local trees and shrubs, which previously had been sort of eeking their way out of bud – as if they dreaded emerging into the dryness – had suddenly expanded by a factor of two or maybe even three. Despite a rather chilly north-northeasterly breeze, the Prothonotary was streaking up and down the coulee like a black-lab puppy, singing his lungs out. Overhead, four or five cardinals were leaf-bathing amongst the feathery, newly-emerged, water-coated leaves of a big bald cypress.

Then I heard a song that I'd never heard before – or at least had never noted before – a long, complex, mechanical trill, somewhat like that of the Winter Wren. Suddenly, the singer plopped up into the Oriental buttonbush ten feet away and right in front of me. With his back turned to me, he launched into two or three rounds of his awesome song.

Chipping Sparrow

photo by Russ Norwood http://www.perceptivist.com/

     Wow. Not a wren, but a sparrow. A sparrow with fairly bright-rufous wings and a plain gray band below the nape of his neck. I had to see his face and breast. Borrowing from John “The Bird-whisperer” Conover's arsenal of bird-studying tricks, between pursed lips, I made two very muted, very tiny squeaking noises in quick succession, otherwise remaining motionless. The singer immediately turned to face me and fearlessly launched into another couple of rounds of song. Whoa. Clear, dull-gray breast and dark-brown crown, parted down the middle by a pale brown-gray line. A Chipping Sparrow, half-molted into breeding plumage.

     Once the sparrow departed to the big American hornbeam on the other side of the barn, I decided to follow him. I wanted to hear more. But as I approached the barn, I became distracted by the mighty bloom show put on by a wild hawthorn and a native florida-flame-type azalea that Lydia had planted many years ago. Whoa! What a difference a rain makes! Yesterday, both were still in tight bud.

left, Mystery Haw

right, Tommy Dodd's hybrid Florida Flame Azalea

detail: Tommy's Azalea

Mystery Haw

That hawthorn presents a real mystery to me. Typically, the only wild hawthorn native to the bottomland forests of this latitude is the green hawthorn (Crataegus viridis; aka “hog haw”), but this particular tree, present since we moved here in 1982, has larger leaves and longer thorns than the green haw. Nearest I can tell, it might be a cock's-spur hawthorn (C. crus-galli) or perhaps a hybrid between green and cock's-spur. Regardless, it's a beaut.

native Swamp Privet (Forestiera acuminata)

Swamp Privet flower detail

Heading back to the house, I noted one more rain-induced fancy-bloomer, the swamp privet (Forestiera acuminata). Not an invasive-exotic privet, the swamp privet is native to our region, but lives mostly tucked away in swamps and in very wet bottomland hardwood forests.

Water's the drink which stirs the plants which stir the animals...even the humans.

spring 2011

2011-03-04T15:19:00.000-06:00

Red Buckeye by the Coulee in our Backyard

Love calls

Like the wild birds;

It's another day.

The spring wind blew my list of things to do

Away.

– Greg Brown

….she was born in spring

but I was born too late.....

– Bob Dylan

After putting it off for a week, I decided to go out on 25 February and pull up a bunch of briars that were coming up around our pawpaw (Asimina triloba) and red buckeye (Aesculus pavia) trees next to the coulee in the backyard. To my delight, the local deciduous hollies (Ilex decidua) had just leafed-out, as had the red buckeye; and new leaves were just barely expanding out of their buds on the rough-leaf dogwoods (Cornus drummondii). Spring! Yay!

Funny, when I was younger I used to see weeding (especially briars) as personal penance – you know, like a comparative rooting out of my sins or something. Today, I see weeding as a privelige – a sacrament – another opportunity to get my hands into God. Yes, the real penance, as I see it today, is living in this world that we've created and rather thoughtlessly superimposed over God's world. Not too cool for (supposedly) thinking beings. Ah, but I digress . . .

Mayhaw

So, eighteen pounds of weeded briars later, I took a break to drink in the green – what little of it there was, anyway. You take what you can get when you get it, you know? Besides being my second-to-favorite color, green is the very background music – nay, the very anchor of our lives back here in the bottomland hardwoods of south Louisiana. By late January – when ninety-nine percent of your vegetation is deciduous – the freshness of winter has pretty much worn off, and things get to looking bleak . . . an unchanging sea of grays and browns.

Then suddenly, one day in late February, here come the leaves. Whoa! The Promise is renewed, and I didn't have to lift a finger for it to be so! Neither did the bugs who eat those leaves. Neither the birds and lizards who eat the bugs. It is indeed a time for celebration.....Anole lizards flip-flopping from trees to deck rails and what-have-you. Cardinals and mourning doves singing their lungs out and bringing seed gifts to their lady friends. Chickadees wandering around looking for stray hair with which to line their nests (I help them all I can; as do the dogs – unwittingly).

Carolina Cherry-laurel

Today – one week later – hackberry (Celtis laevigata), sweetgum (Liquidambar styriciflua) and southern crabapple (Malus angustifolia) have all leafed out. So one can almost say that green has at last balanced out the browns and grays. Almost.

Little-leaf Viburnum

And the blooms! Woodland phlox (Phlox divaricata) carpets the ground back around our main birdbath. Redbud (Cercis canadensis), cherry-laurel (Prunus caroliniana), mayhaw (Crataegus opaca), and little-leaf viburnum (Viburnum obovatum) are all in flower out front. Driving down the blacktop, buttercup (Ranunculus spp.) covers the overgrazed pastures. Yellowtop (Senicio glabellus) fills the littered ditches.

Eastern Redbud

Last night, under the darkness of a nearly-new-moon, out come the first fireflies of what we call “2011”.

The massive spring machine is rolling, never mind that most humans around here barely – if at all – notice it. Good thing it doesn't, like, need our permission or something in order to appear.

Woodland Phlox

Meanwhile, God sees our contrived/superimposed world, falling apart as it is, and goes, “(sigh)....kids....what're ya' gonna do with 'em? I told 'em not to eat that apple!”

Meanwhile, as Bob Dylan has mentioned, life goes on all around us.....

Hooray for spring!

real old lafayette

2011-02-23T14:51:00.000-06:00

the Mayfield Point

(photo by Brad Mayfield)

As with many towns I'm sure, here around Lafayette, Louisiana we use the term “Old Lafayette” to describe present-day folks who embody the best qualities that our town is traditionally known for, which for Lafayette includes things like a dogged cheerfulness about life – even in adversity, a tolerance for others, a perpetual readiness to help others be they strangers or kin; and lastly, a perpetual readiness to celebrate – which here means we know how to cook the best kind of stuff, make the best kind of music, and dance the best kind of dances – summarized by an oft-heard Old Lafayette saying, “We know what's good, chere!”

In these days of fear and the paranoid reality that it tends to create, “Old Lafayette encounters have become more than a breath of fresh air; more like a much-needed shot of oxygen. But I digress . . .

Anyway, imagine, then, the faces of the two eleven-year-old playmates who happened to stumble across a tool used right in their “Old Lafayette” backyard – only the tool's owner's “Old Lafayette” existed 10,000-12,000 years ago. Uh-huh. Now that's Old Lafayette, ya'll.

The Mayfield Backyard; Bayou Vermilion Flowing in Background

(photo by Brad Mayfield)

That's precisely what happened to Jenny Mayfield and Tammy Byers back in the spring of 1974 in Jenny's backyard along the Bayou Vermilion. Bending down to look at the washed-over roots of an old hickory tree, Tammy found a Clovis point; a spearhead used by North America's first human inhabitants who arrived in “Lafayette” back at the end of the Ice Age.

Excitedly, they rushed rushed in the house hollering for Jenny's dad, Ben, to see it. “Duly impressed,” as Jenny put it, Ben followed the girls out to the spot where they had found it. According to Ben, he could see “its resting place was very clearly marked by a sunken impression, surrounded by a layer of moss and dirt, on top of a large root.”

Halfway Down the Bluff, 10-12,000 year-old Red River Strata is Exposed

(photo by Brad Mayfield)

The Mayfield house sits on a twenty-five-foot bluff overlooking the Vermilion Bayou, which widens to more of a river as it flows through southern Lafayette en route to its terminus in Vermilion Bay. Ben said the spearpoint was located at a place of an abrupt change in slope, which probably marks the “second bottom” of the bayou – the point to which floodwaters swell on a seasonal basis.

Oddly, Ben Mayfield mentions that the original hickory tree where the girls found the spearpoint was toppled by Hurricane Lily in 2004, at which time he aged the tree via ring-count. It was only 100 years old! So, this tree, as a chance-seedling happened germinate near the Clovis point, eventually bringing it up with its roots? That's what it sounds like, as I can't imagine flowing floodwaters powerful enough to carry that spearhead very far. Bayou Vermilion's flow is flat/wide/slow – even in the floodiest of times.

Ben further states that the spearpoint was found in a soil strata of “ochre-colored clay,” correlating to a time when the ancient/Pleistocene Red River ran through the course taken by present-day Bayou Vermilion.

Keep in mind that at different times during the Pleistocene/Holocene periods (1,000,000 – 5,000 years B.P.), both the ancient Red and Mississippi Rivers ran through the present-day channels of the Atchafalaya River, Bayous Teche and Vermilion, and westward across the Mermentau River Basin and into the Calcasieu and Sabine River system at the Louisiana-Texas border.

The Pleistocene, known as the “Ice Age,” was actually comprised of about ten successive 100,00-year Ice Age cycles whereby the Arctic Circle would basically migrate south into the present-day northern U.S., tying up massive amounts of water into ice and causing sea level to drop 100-300' .

These periods of glaciation were followed by interglacial periods whereby the ice to our north would melt, creating equally massive rivers of meltwater coursing southward into the Gulf of Mexico. These ancient rivers shifted around with each successive interglacial period, acting like bulldozers in pushing rock, sand, and mud southward and then wiggling east-west like the end of an untended hose, fanning the sediment to create our present-day river deltas.

It is said that at the very end of the Pleistoncene and beginning of the Holocene – about 5,000 years ago – the Mississippi River was flowing right here through south-central Louisiana. Its western bank was what we know today as the “Coteau Ridge” in St. Landry and Lafayette parishes, and the “Terrace” (pron. "Teh-ROSS" roll that "r" ya'll . . .) further south in St. Martin and Iberia parishes. At that time, it was carrying nineteen times the volume of water compared to the present-day flow of the Mississippi River.

By the early 1990s, local archeologist Thomas Marckese had gotten wind of the Mayfield Point, and wrote it up in Volume 19 No. 3 of the Louisiana Archeological Society Newsletter. In his paper, Marckese provides very good background to the Clovis People story in Louisiana. Keep in mind that Louisiana's oldest known Native American settlement is at Poverty Point in the extreme northeastern portion of the state. That site dates back about 1,000 years, and is considered among the oldest Native American settlements in the U.S. Contrast that fact with the Clovis period, which dates back 11,950-10,770 years B.P., according to Marckese.

Wanna talk about old? These folks were so “old” that they didn't make pottery -- hadn't been invented yet in this neck of the woods -- and lived many thousands of years before even the bow and arrow were conceived. They had no true settlements. They were nomads, chasing big mammals like mammoth, ground sloth, camel, and bison down with spears, which they threw with the aid of an atlatl or throwing stick. In the New World, Clovis point finds have been found from the Great Lakes southward through Central and South America to Equador.

In his paper Marckese mentions that the Mayfield Point is constructed from a fine, “waxy” grey flint, probably originating in present-day central Texas. Conventional archeology believes that locally, Clovis people headquartered there, probably following bison herds into present-day Louisiana on a seasonal basis. Marckese mentioned additional Clovis finds in Louisiana, stretching diagonally from northwestern Louisiana southeastward into south-central Louisiana, with local finds from Lawtell and Grand Coteau, (St. Landry parish), the present-day Lafayette airport (Lafayette parish), down on Cote Blanche Island (Iberia parish) – and now the Mayfield backyard in Lafayette – forming a line along the ancient Red River as it coursed all the way south into the Gulf of Mexico at the end of the Pleistocene.

The Louisiana Coast ca. 18,000(?) Years Ago

Pardon the Red Marks...

In this map that I lifted from Atlas of Louisiana – A Guide for Students (Milton Newton, Jr. 1972), you see a depiction of the shoreline of present-day “Louisiana” at some point toward the end of the Pleistocene (for some reason, 18,000 B.P. Sticks in my mind, though I can't find the actual date). Note how far past our present-day shoreline it goes, creeping well onto the continental shelf. Note the depiction of rivers corresponding to 150-mile southward extensions of our present day Teche, Vermilion, Mermentau, Calcasieu, and Sabine river systems.

And what of the terrain of all this additionally exposed late-Pleistoncene land? Not forested, but rather cool/moist prairie – similar to what we see through much of central and western Canada today. So Real Old Lafayette is where the buffalo once roamed – and mammoths, and giant ground sloths, and camels . . . and Clovis people. As Marckese stated, present-day south-central Louisiana, being the late-Pleistocene recipient of massive amounts of northern meltwater and sediment, made for a very fertile and diverse biotic community – certainly attractive then, in both climate and ecology, to early human hunters.

Turns out that Lafayette has been a happening place at least 218 centuries before the first Frenchman ever set foot here with his black iron pot and fiddle. . .

more on "salt birds"

2011-02-11T11:44:00.000-06:00

sunset over Louisiana's outer continental shelf

(photo by Edward Watson)

“People” said that my last post ('sittin' in the pass of the bay') ended too abruptly. Probably so. I just 1) didn't have anything more to say on the subject at the time, and 2) am still reveling at the “look ma no editor” aspect of blogging. It is a refreshing thing, especially for those who write for a living....

Anyway, Dave Patton recently sent me a coupla more offshore bird photos; and Edward Watson sent in a beaut as well....all of which inspired this post.

Ring-billed Gulls....one of Louisiana's most common winter seabird species

Whenever you go out on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico with Dave Patton, there's an unspoken promise that you'll eventually end up chumming for seabirds. For many years, very little was known about Louisiana's offshore seabird population. It was a simple case of too few ornithologically-inclined people going offshore. Prior to 1970, biologist Jake Valentine (what a name, what a guy) was among the “too few” going out to do census work. By the mid-1970s, regular survey work began throughout the state's coastal barrier island system; and by the 1990s quasi-regular, far-offshore survey trips were happening.

big ol' barrel-chested Pomarine Jaeger (i think)

([unidentified] photo by Dave Patton)

Closer in to shore, several easy-to-view-but-rarely-viewed bird species spend substantial amounts of time along the Louisiana coast. Of these, Dave likes to look for the Jaegers best. “Jaeger” is German for “hunter”........ but perhaps “Meisterdieb” (German for “master thief”) would be a better name for these birds. Gull-like in most aspects, the Jaegers posses a swifter, more falcon-like flight style, which they use to great advantage in committing regular mid-air robberies of fish-laden gulls and terns. It's not like Jaegers steal food on occasion; that's what they do for a living.

Parasitic Jaeger

(photo by Dave Patton)

Three species of Jaeger are native to North America: Long-tailed Jaeger, Parasitic Jaeger, and Pomarine Jaeger. All of them nest up in the Arctic Circle, and all of them can be occasionally spotted throughout larger lakes and reserviors over most of the U.S. during fall/winter/spring migration periods. The best places to find them, though, are the nearshore waters of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf of Mexico.

young Black-legged Kittiwake wheels toward the chum

(Photo by Dave Patton)

The Black-legged Kittiwake is another far-north breeder that turns up throughout most of the U.S. during migration periods. I use the term “turns up,” but in truth relatively few observers get to record Kittiwakes and/or Jaegers in the lower 48. Percentage-wise, the odds of running across one of these species during migration are substantially low.... unless you 1) own a boat or happen to know someone who owns a boat, 2) have a pretty good idea of what you're looking for, when to look for it, and where to look for it.

Here in Louisiana, that translates to nearshore Gulf waters, fall/winter/spring, with Dave Patton. And don't forget your fishin' pole.

sittin' in the pass of the bay

2011-01-27T16:29:00.000-06:00

Hooded Mergansers -- gorgeous fish-eating ducks -- at Southwest Pass

January 26 dawned at a chilly (for us) 34F and a light north wind; but by the time we reached the Cypremort Point boat launch a couple of hours later, it had warmed considerably and it was nearly dead calm. The wind didn't know which way to blow.

Dave Patton and I have been watching birds together for about 25 years. By now, there ain't no more secrets to tell, so we mainly just enjoy each other's company. We don't get together as much as we used to, but we both hope that'll change soon. In fact, we're trying to do something about that today.

“More fishing” is definitely on my bucket list these days; and thanx to the influence of a mutual birding friend, Dave's thinking that way too. Dave's got a nice boat.

So he called me on the 25th wondering if i'd care to go fishing/birding down in Vermilion Bay. Oh yeah.

First thing, we putt through Shark Island and up to Mud Point and the infamous fishing hotspot called “the Trash Pile” in neaby Weeks Bay. My buddy Mark Manuel recently gave me a fine redfish/speckled trout rod that he built, and I went out and bought a cheap reel for it. I was hot to try it out, and the Trash Pile would be the perfect spot.

Dave's cleverly-constructed "leg block"... note matching paint job

Dave, on the other hand, had recently constructed a “leg shield” for his boat: a contraption devised to block the wind from coming in down under the windshield on his open-bowed bay boat.

We tested away and were happy with the results. But, alas, Weeks Bay was so damn birdless (and fishless) that it threatened to depress us both – on a perfectly beautiful day to be out on the water, no less. So by noon or so we're heading back east toward Cypremort Point and Dave's looking longingly at Vermilion Bay, to our south. To our amazement, the water was totally slick – smooth as glass – like some sort of glacial lake up in Canada, you know? Rarely does one get a chance to boat in such conditions along our coast. So Dave asks me if I felt like a ride to Southwest Pass – a 12 mile ride down to the foot of Vermilion Bay. I look at the water and go “yeah!”

The lower end of Vermilion Bay is blocked off from the Gulf of Mexico by Marsh Island. Marsh Island, a large barrier island, is aproned to the south and west with oyster reefs – miles of 'em. South of there, it's open Gulf.

Strange thing is that Vermilion Bay, like most bays in coastal Louisiana, probably averages no more than 5-feet in depth; and the open Gulf of Mexico to the immediate south of Marsh Island is proabably no more than 8-12-feet in depth. But the narrow cut between Marsh Island and the mainland of Vermilion parish – a cut known as Southwest Pass – is some 70-feet deep(!), literally carved through solid oyster reef via 10,000 years of strong tidal action between Vermilion Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.

En route to the pass, we decided that we ought to put in some Louisiana Winter Bird Atlas time in there, since the atlas season was on, and virtually no one birded Hellhole Bayou, the quad that contains Southwest Pass. Hellhole Bayou was data-starved, and we intended to rectify the situation.

Brown Pelicans sliding home....Safe!.....while the other team (American White Pelicans) yawns in astonishment.

Reaching Southwest Pass by about 1pm, we saw quite a few cormorants, pelicans, ducks, shorebirds, and what-have-you lolly-gagging around, on, and behind the reefs on both sides of the pass. Dave cut the engine, and we were immediately engulfed in this warm, sunny, near-perfectly calm setting.

The Scene....were it not for the bits of exposed reef, birds, etc., would you know which way was up?

So nearly identical were sky and sea in color, texture, and temprement that all seemed to coalesce into One, leaving us with the feeling of being eerily suspended somewhere Within.

Suspended Somewhere Within...with my new pole/reel...i didn't know which way to throw it at the time.....As Captain Beefheart once exclaimed, "Do it start at the bottom, or do it start at the top?"

It's a hard thing to describe, I know; but certainly worth reporting. In fact, the only other time I've had that feeling was with Dave, on a Christmas Bird Count at Lacassine-Thornwell there in southern Jeff Davis parish. That day, it was the fog that disoriented – or more properly, misoriented us. That day, the heavily overcast sky merged with the fog and with the shallow water of a ricefield that stretched out before us for a half-mile or so. Suddenly we felt like we were floating somewhere Within. I remember the only way that I could gain some semblance of orientation was to look straight down at my feet anchored to the gravel road below....and even that short of a space was foggy!

Counting Green-winged Teal and Black-bellied Plovers behind a distant reef.

Necessity = Mutha of Invention

So calm was Southwest Pass that we found we could even operate a spotting scope from the boat! Of course we had earlier talked ourselves out of bringing along a tripod, reasoning that only an idiot would even attempt to scope birds from a pitching boat. But Dave did manage to bring his spotting scope in his camera bag, and necessity being the mutha of invention and all, we rigged an acceptable spotting scope mount using Dave's handy-dandy “leg-shield” anchored with bungie-cord onto his boat's bow rail.

'tis the season to be counting . . .

2010-12-31T14:15:00.000-06:00

Snow Geese Under Half-Moon near Mire, LA

(Photo by Denny Culbert)

Throughout the U.S., Canada, and parts of the Carribean, Christmas Bird Counts (CBC) have been run for over a century. Google “Christmas Bird Count” for historical details. Each year, the CBC season runs from December 18 - January 4. Well over 2,000 counts are run each season, including over 20 within the state of Louisiana.

Tallying every bird seen/heard Throughout the Day

is the worst part of a CBC

(photo by Denny Culbert)

Individual count organizers select one day within the season to run a given count. Basically, 15 mile-diameter “count circles” are strategically selected, in which count compilers attempt to include as diverse of a line-up of different habitat types as possible. Then, participants are recruited, and the count circle is divided up in accordance with the number of observers participating. From pre-dawn to post-dusk, participants count every bird that they see and/or hear. At the end of the day, particpants meet to compare notes, and the count list is compiled.

Chris Brantley, Patti Hollard, Walker Wilson, Heather Mancuso

Working a Rice Field in Niblett (southwestern Jeff Davis Parish)

     The “Lac-Thorn” CBC was held on December 18 this year – a dry, cold, windy affair. Weatherwise, you never know what you'll get at a CBC. Last year, Lac-Thorn was so wet we couldn't even make it to Bayou Lacassine – the western terminus of our “Niblett” area, a complex of rice fields, pocket-marshes, and wooded canals, bayous, lakes, and small woodlots located northwest of the intersection of LA 14 and LA 99 in extreme southwestern Jeff Davis parish.

     Ditto for this year's Lafayette CBC held on December 28 – dry, cold, and breezy. Birding all bundled up and eyes watering from frigid winds is a challenge in itself. Our area in the Lafayette circle is way up on the northwestern edge, above I-10 around the rural communities of Mire, Vatican, and Ossun. Like our “Niblett” area at Lac-Thorn, the Mire/Vatican/Ossun landscape is primarily flat and open, but dominated by cattle pastures and only pocked with rice-fields and wooded ponds.

Coming in for a dawn Landing at Mire Crawfish Ponds

28F, Sick East Wind.....Brrrrrrrrrr

Patti's already got her hat on

Bill Vermillion Attempts to Stay Warm, Working the Mire Crawfish Ponds

(photo by Denny Culbert)

An Open-country Bird, the Killdeer can Take it Wet or Dry

(photo by Denny Culbert)

A Tree Swallow Plies the Frigid Air Above a Mire Crawfish Pond

What in the World can he be Finding to Eat in 28F Weather?!!???

(photo by Denny Culbert)

In both circles, it was so dry this year that most of the rice fields were waterless; so we were at an immediate disadvantage regarding waterfowl, rails, shorebirds, and other water birds. Fortunately, a few fields remained "pumped up" for crawfish production. On both counts, the wind was so steady and chilly that most of the songbirds were laying low for much of the day.

Bless Their Lil' Hearts...Regardless of Weather Conditions,

You Can Always Count on Counting Chickadees.

They Wouldn't Miss a CBC for the World....

(photo by Denny Culbert)

It wasn't until after lunch that the sun began to peek through the clouds, allowing a few warblers, sparrows, and others to slip up on exposed perches to catch a few rays. Still, the action was heavy, if not always fast and furious. We stayed pretty busy all day long at both places.

Good Things Come to Those who Work their Butts Off

We found this rare Ash-throated Flycatcher at a Very

Secluded wooded Lake near Mire, LA

(photo by Denny Culbert)

Patti Holland and Bill Fontenot Eye an Unidentified Hawk

In Low Light A Thousand or so Yards Away....Ah, Dawn.....

Dawn is the crucial time for a CBC. Participants need to find a dawn-watch site that is as elevated (definitely a relative term here in south Lousiana) as possible, and that allows for the widest field-of-view. The dawn-watch site should also be located in or at least adjacent to as diverse a variety of habitats as possible, with “big water” being the most important ingredient. For me, as I'm sure is true for other experienced CBC participants, a successful dawn-watch (generally 6:30-9:00 a.m.) accounts for well over half of the total bird species listed for the day.

White Ibis, Cruisin' for Crawfish at Mire

(photo by Denny Culbert)

Ducks, geese, herons, egrets, ibis, hawks, blackbirds, and other groups are commuting from roosting sites to feeding sites (or vice-versa) at this time. And once the sun rises, sparrows and other songbirds climb up to exposed perches to dry off their plumage, and soak up some warmth.

Here Comes the Sun, Little Darlin'....

A Swamp Sparrow Shaking off Dew at Mire
(photo by Denny Culbert)

Each dawn-watch holds its own surprises. Just after dawn but prior to actual sunrise this year at Lac-Thorn, our Niblett group was treated to a close-up show featuring a female-type Peregrine Falcon riding a stiff northerly breeze only several feet above a rice field, playfully harassing three Great Egrets who were attempting to get a little breakfast in at a protected corner of the field.

Returning from a Successful "Owl Roost Run" in Niblett

After dawn-watch, it's a matter of hunting and pecking, seeking out pockets of good-looking habitat that have the best potential for holding birds. This hunt and peck operation continues through the day.

A "Pocket Marsh" at Niblett

Patti Holland and Molly Richard Scour an Isolated Lake in Niblett

Their efforts were Rewarded with a Black-bellied Whistling Duck, Neotrop Cormorant, and Anhinga

By mid-afternoon, the group begins to inventory potential sites for dusk-watch. As with the dawn-watch, a good dusk-watch spot needs to be elevated, and possess wide-open vista-like views – again, preferably adjacent to water. A successful dusk-watch can add several last-minute species that are generally not found at any other time, including selected duck, sandpiper, and owl species, Black-crowned Night-heron, Woodcock, and the like.

Dusk at Niblett

Molly "Taco Sister" Richard, Bill Fontenot, Patti Holland

(photo by Chris Brantley)

Niblett Dusk-watch Worked to Perfection, Nabbing

Six Black-crowned Night Herons and Two Short-eared Owls

This year, funky weather conditons resulted in far fewer individual birds counted; plus total misses of numerous species which we ordinarly would tally without much trouble. Still, we did a respectable job at both counts, amassing a species list of 77 at Lafayette and 114(!) at Lac-Thorn. I've gotta say, the Niblett area of Lac-Thorn is about as birdy as it gets in Louisiana – not only from a species diversity perspective, but also from a sheer “biomass” perspective – like hundreds of gulls, tens of thousands of geese, and hundreds of thousands of blackbirds. Consider that our 114 species from the Niblett area alone tops the entire count circle totals from of the majority of CBCs held in the U.S. and Canada each year. Louisiana Christmas Bird Counters are a fortunate lot.

best christmas present ever

2010-12-31T11:26:00.002-06:00

We are stardust

We are golden

Billion-year-old carbon;

And we've got to get ourselves

Back to the Garden.

-- Joni Mitchell

     Well, maybe not best Christmas present ever – that would have to be a tie between 1) a Cape Canaveral Space Set (1963), a Stellar 3-turret mirrored Microscope [1965; complete with ultra-fine wooden carrying case....i still have this one....] and 3) a James Bond HO Slot Car Set (1966). So let's just say that the garden that I just put in this past Christmas Eve is the best Christmas present I've received in 44 years. Yeah.

     Initially Lydia and I put this garden in not long after we moved here to the wilds of northern Lafayette parish – probably around 1983 or so. The soil is a rich, silty-clay with virtually no sand component in it. Mulch as we did (for over 10 straight years) my beloved tomatoes hated it, as did eggplant and even cucumber. In fact, the only veggies that actually liked it were okra and cayenne peppers. So we eventually abandoned it, which worked out fine, since our professional careers were peaking then, and we had little time for veggie gardening.

     We both come from gardening families. Both sets of parents maintained perpetual veggie gardens. My sister Betsy and I spent more than a few hours in ours. Dad didn't make us weed; but we did plant, water, and harvest. I'd like to know how many butter beans and field peas we shelled. . .

     Peter Perino, my maternal grandpa, was a professional vegetable man from St. Bernard parish.. He and his brother-in-law, Jimmy “V.J.” Campagna secured a piece of really fertile land off the Mississippi River in northeastern Plaquemines parish. They grew veggies for the French Market, specializing in cauliflower. Man did they grow some fine stuff.

     As soon as Lydia and I moved in together in north Louisiana, we started a garden. Up there the soil was almost total sand, and required lots of organic material. At the time I worked for a mosquito control outfit, trapping birds and drawing blood samples for encephilitis monitoring. One of my major trapping sites was the Monroe zoo. Desperate for organic materials, I began picking up elephant and other exotic animal dung there and importing it into our garden. Ultimately, however, the only good things we could get to grow there were illegal.

Dave, double-diggin'; me, clod-bustin

Fast forward 31 years and, thanks to a little help from our friends, we're at it again. My knees and shoulders are pretty well shot; and I knew that I didn't have it in me to double-dig the old garden. So a few days before Christmas I called our younger plant pal David Kent for help. Being a sustainable-living adherent, he was delighted at the prospect.

Gail Barton, Master Horticulturist/Belly-dancer

     And it just so happened that another longtime plant pal, Gail Barton (http://yardflower.com), herself a career horticultural professional, was in visiting from Mississippi. She too was thrilled at the idea. She and I went to visit mutual friend, wholesale herb grower June Walker at her place in Sunset; and when June (herself a perpetual veggie gardener) found out about my plan, she donated a number of 4” lettuces, cabbages, parsley, cilantro, etc. to the cause. Yee-Hah!!

     Dave and I finished the “rabbit fence” a couple of days later, on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve night we hosted a spagetti dinner (ancient Sicillian family recipe) for family, and when Catherine “CattyCakes” Robichaux – Master Salad-maker – said, “Hey what are we gonna do for a salad?” I jumped at the chance to cut some of June's 4” greens. Duly inspired, Catherine whipped up an outstanding salad, replete with a craftily-concocted tart/sweet 'mayhaw-cheese' dressing that went outrageously well with the spagetti.

     I cannot describe the joy at being back in the grow-your-own business . . .

     Sustainability is where it's at, ya'll. Importing and industrializing our very food supply, as we've been doing for the past 40-50 years, is a dangerous, expensive (economically and ecologically), and unhealthy practice.

the curious case of the cheneyville cranes

2010-12-22T15:34:00.000-06:00

Cranes?... Not! Snowy Egrets (photo by Dave Patton)

If you, like me, were raised up back in the 1950s-60s in the farming or fishing districts of south Louisiana, you might have heard the term “crane” used for any white egret. Some people still use that term today! But true cranes are altogether different animals from egrets. Cranes occupy their own family, the Gruidae (15 species, worldwide; 2 species in North America, the Whooping Crane and the Sandhill Crane), and are actually more closely related to the rails and gallinules than they are to the herons and egrets.

Sandhill Cranes (photo by Dan Bertrand)

Yes, these are Sandhill Cranes, standing at about 4' tall with wingspans exceeding 7' -- big ol' birds that might be confused only with something like a Great Blue Heron. Sandhill Cranes breed mostly in the prairies, plains, and tundra of Alaska and Central Canada, dribbling down to nest in only a few Upper Midwest and Great Basin prairies in the U.S.

Each fall they stage fantastic migrations, turning up almost anywhere west of the Appalachians before settling into central California, the southwestern U.S. (including much of the western half of Texas) and northwestern Mexico.

Curiously, a few Sandhill Cranes have been sort of hanging on as year-round/breeding residents along a thin band of “sand hills” (actually, relict longleaf-pine savannas) from southern Mississippi eastward through southern Georgia and the Florida panhandle. Up until the end of the 19th century, Louisiana hosted year round/breeding Sandhill Crane flocks, confined mainly to the longleaf pine savannas of the Florida parishes (southeastern Louisiana) and the mixed tallgrass prairie/marshland complex in southern Cameron parish just above Louisiana's southwestern coast.

Could these year round breeders represent the remains of a relict Pleistocene-era flock forced southward by the massive continental ice sheet which had built as far south as southern Ohio? It is said that at the last glacial climax of the Pleistocene (ca. 12,000 years ago) the entire Gulf Coast was a perpetually cool grassland (much like modern-day central Canada) which extended all the way south through the present-day continental shelf!

If I'm not mistaken, camel, mastodon, and other giant Pleistocene mammal bones have been found at Avery Island, which would have been right in the middle of the Louisiana portion of that massive grassland complex. Could Sandhill (and Whooping) Cranes have nested/lived down here in big numbers all the way back to that era? It wouldn't surprise me.

The first documented record of Sandhill Cranes in Louisiana came from the reports of Le Page du Pratz, an early French colonial planter who spent 1718-34 in Louisiana (about half that time living with the Natchez Indians), recording plants, animals, and first nation peoples. His book, The History of Louisiana was published in Paris in 1758. In it, he referred to “The Crane” as “a very common water-fowl...very lean and of excellent taste. It eats somewhat like beef, and makes a very good soup.”

I also ran across another interesting 18th century reference to a Coulee des Grues (= “Gully of the Cranes”), subsequently located for me by north Louisiana biologist Kelby Ouchley, at present-day Grand Cote National Wildlife Refuge just west of Marksville, LA in northwestern Avoyelles parish. Mentioned in The Historic Indian Tribes of Louisiana (Kniffen, Gregory, and Stokes, 1987), Coulee des Grues served as the boundary between the Tunica and Biloxi Indian nations in 1780.

Interestingly, Grand Cote NWR sits at the northern end of the historic “Avoyel Prairie,” now almost totally under cultivation/pasture, and situated only a few miles east of the communities of Lecompte, Echo, and Cheneyville (Rapides and Avoyelles parishes), where the first flock of wintering Sandhill Cranes was seen by modern humans in 1962. Yet something tells me that French colonials would have never named a waterway "Coulee des Grues" unless they were seeing cranes around it. Real cranes, not egrets; as we've already established that French colonials certainly knew the difference between cranes and egrets.

“Cheneyville Crane” photo by Jim Johnson

http://www.jimejohnsonphoto.com/

In any case, prior to the 1962 discovery, Sandhill Cranes were almost unknown in Louisiana since the turn of the 20th century, at least. Amazingly, as late as 1974 (see Sandhill Crane citation in Louisiana Birds 1974), George Lowery, Jr. himself was not aware of the Cheneyville flock, referring to only a handful of recent Louisiana sightings – mostly of singles and pairs, and mostly from the marshlands of sothern Louisiana – in his book.

Regardless, subsequent to the 1962 Cheneyville discovery (or, probably better-termed, “rediscovery”), Sandhill Crane sightings have slowly/gradually increased each winter in Louisiana, spreading north of Cheneyville up into Natchitoches and West Carroll parishes, as well as south of Cheneyville, down into northeastern Cameron parish and much of Jeff Davis parish. Each year, however, the Cheneyville area consistently hosts the largest concentration of Sandhills, usually with one or two flocks numbering somewhere around 700-1,500 birds.

My first encounter with the Cheneyville cranes came during the winter of 1977 when I was commuting between Ville Platte and (then) Northeastern Louisiana University in Monroe. Just south of Lecompte, I saw four of them in an expansive pasture just a couple of hundred yards off of LA 71. I remember telling the ornithology professor at Monroe about them, but he dismissed my report out-of-hand, as he was wont to do with every report passed along to him by an (ugh) undergraduate.

Among the wariest birds around, Sandhill Cranes require vast open spaces – preferably well-isolated from human habitation – for both roosting and foraging purposes. Drive through the Cheneyville-Echo-Lecompte triangle and you'll note just that – huge expanses of agricultural lands where birds can safely eat and sleep; never allowing human intruders within 0.25-0.50 mile of them. Ditto for the Holmwood area (just west of LA 14 X LA 27E) in northeastern Cameron parish, where a substantial flock of Sandhills has taken up residence each winter for the past 30 years, at least.

Keen birdwatchers are increasingly finding small groups of Sandhills throughout many parts of Louisiana in early to mid-winter – probably foraging fragments of the larger flocks stationed around Holmwood and Cheneyville. Most of these sightings are coming from ag lands; and most often the birds are seen in flight, for when they do put down to feed you can be sure that it will be in the most isolated spots possible.

In flight however, they are hard to miss: huge gray birds with wingspans exceeding that of geese. They're so big that they usually don't take to the air until mid-morning, when thermals created by the sun-heated ground lift them up into the air.

On November 27 of this year, around the Gueydan-Kaplan area in Vermilion parish, Lafayette birder/hunter Toddy Guidry spotted a lone Sandhill Crane flying at the tail end of a V-formation of about 20 Greater White-fronted (aka “speckle-belly”) geese.

Sandhills in Flight

(they're about the size of Great Blue Herons, but with longer wingspans)

photo by Dave Patton

And you can only imagine the shock experienced by Lafayette birder Dave Patton, who sat “day-dreaming at a stoplight” one December morning and watched a Sandhill flock come out of nowhere and put down in the wide-open field right behind the National Wetland Research Center, smack dab in the city of Lafayette! That must have been about 15 years ago...

The “Cheneyville Cranes” photo by Jim Johnson

http://www.jimejohnsonphoto.com/

So what happened to Sandhill Cranes in Louisiana in the interim between the mid-18th century and 1962? Official modern-day records date back only as far as 1899. Between then and the 1962 discovery of the Cheneyville flock, only about a dozen records are on file for our state, mostly involving single bird or single pair sightings. Then, suddenly, they were back. How/why did they decide to return? Curious, non?

hackberry fest!

2010-12-17T09:54:00.000-06:00

Festival-goer (Slummin' at the Chinese tallow booth) ...

(photo by Russ Norwood) http://perceptivist.com/

It all started about three weeks ago when American Robins began piling into the hackberry grove that lines the northern and eastern borders of our backyard. Looking up into the leafless hackberry trees, I was surprised to see them loaded with fruit, despite the dry year that we've just experienced. In fact, it looked like the biggest hackberry crop that I'd ever seen in the 28 years that we've lived back here. Of further interest was the fact that these robins are about a month early this year. Normally, they don't go for our hackberry crop until very late December or early January.

As the days wore on, more and more robins piled in. Primary feasting time was dawn through about 9:00am each day. This morning (17 Dec) I estimated the robin flock to contain about 400 individuals. Originally, I figured about half that amount, but then an adult female Cooper's Hawk zipped overhead and flushed the entire flock into a southbound beeline, at which point I could best estimate the actual numbers of the flock.

Eastern Bluebird (photo by John Spohrer)

http://www.apalachphototours.com/

Several days ago I noted that two families (about 10 birds, total) of bluebirds had occupied a kinder/gentler, more isolated hackberry clump behind our barn, where they merrily chatted and ate to their hearts' content for four mornings running.

One morning I also noted a lone bluejay snagging hackberries amidst a small flock of robins right off the eastern edge of our back porch. I watched him for awhile, as I have not seen many bluejays engaging in frugivorous (fruit-eating) behavior. Unlike the robins, this bluejay was plucking hackberries one by one, holding them against a branch with his feet, and cracking them open with his bill, much like chickadees and titmice do with sunflower seeds. He worked quickly – almost as quickly as the nearby robins, who were simply plucking fruits and swallowing them whole.

Cedar Waxwing (photo by John Spohrer)

http://www.apalachphototours.com/

All along, Cedar Waxwings became attracted into the fray; and this morning I estimated 75-125 of them working the backyard hackberries. This is very early for Cedar Waxwings to be occurring in such numbers. Normally we don't see large concentrations of them down here until holly fruit time (Jan-Feb). And I know I've never seen this many Cedar Waxwings in our yard at one time.

Hackberries really pull in the birds, ya'll. In a statewide bird frugivory survey that a number of us conducted 1994-98, hackberry reigned supreme in terms of the diversity of bird species (27, total) that we recorded using the fruits.

Hackberry Fruits & Foliage (Celtis laevigata)

The hackberry is known to foresters as the “sugarberry,” due to its insipidly sweet fruits. The fruit might look juicy, but it's not – comprised mainly a thin rind, a dab of slimy, pumpkin-colored pulp, and a big seed. But boy do birds love them. Raccoons and squirrels too. On several occasions, Lydia and I have seen raccoons ardently eating green hackberries in August, way before they're ripe.

The Louisiana Francophone name for hackberry is bois connu, a corruption of, “the unknown tree.” Interestng name, non? I've heard a number of possible interpretations for naming it that, but the one I like best is that the hackberry tree was a species which colonists had never encountered in Europe. . . whereas many other New World trees that they enountered such as maples, elms, oaks, chestnuts, etc. had Old World counterparts.

The hackberry natively occurs throughout most of the U.S., excluding only the northern Great Plains, Upper Midwest, and northeastern U.S. Hackberries grow in just about every Louisiana parish. They are primarily bottomland hardwood inhabitants, thriving in high-clay-content alluvium, especially along the densely-forested floodplains of rivers, bayous, and other streams.

cypress-tree-meets-what-birds-eat

2010-11-30T13:40:00.000-06:00

The prey: bald cypress seed cones/innards

I was sitting on our back porch (nestled in the bottomland hardwood forests of northeastern Lafayette parish, Louisiana) around dusk on the evening of November 27 when my attention was drawn to the big bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) in our backyard about 25' away. Nearly leafless now, the tree is loaded with seed cones, fragments of which were clattering through its branches as they fell to the ground. Looking up, I was amazed to see a half-dozen or so male cardinals picking through the seed cones, dismantling them piece by piece. Were they actually eating cypress seeds?

The predator: northern cardinal

photo by Beth Erwin

     Apparently so. For the next half-hour, cardinals came and cardinals went, but the number feeding in the tree held steady at a half-dozen or so. Walking beneath the tree, all I found were empty cone husks on the ground. Whoa. This is the first time that I've noted a bird species of any kind feeding on cypress seed. I mean, I've heard that some birds do it, I've just never seen it for myself.

     Intrigued, I collected a couple of cones the next morning and dissected one. Surprisingly, the cones fell apart quite easily into myriad “chunks” resembling a sort of intricate, 3-D oriental puzzle, even though the exterior of each cone was still green. In between each component part was filled with a thin-but-sticky, yellow-green, and very aromatic/fragrant resin, smelling very much like “essence of Christmas tree.”

     Seedwise, however, I found nothing resembling a seed; but only tiny, lime-green, worm-shaped bodies. I tasted one. It crunched like a vegetable and proved nearly as aromatic in taste as the resin did in smell. Hmmm.

     So I consulted my all-time favorite native woody plant reference, Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Vines of the Southwest (Robert A. Vines, 1960; tree-lovers, ya'll really should grab a copy of this book from an online used book seller; information packed, covers 99% of Louisiana native woody plants, ultra-fine pen & ink drawings of each plant) and read me some.

     Under the “fruit” section of the bald cypress citation, Vines wrote, “Ripening in October-December, cone globose [roundish], closed, rugose [roughened]....formed by the enlargement of the spirally-arranged pistillate [female] flower scales [cypress flowers have scales instead of petals]....scales angular, horny, thick [see dark, chocolate-brown cone scales in photo above]; seeds 2-winged, erect, borne under each scale...”

     Hmm again. I did not see anything 2-winged and erect under each scale. All I saw were those green, crunchy, worm-like bodies. Moreover, each worm-like body came out of its own perfectly-shaped indention on the underside of the scale – like it really belonged there, you know? Was I looking at yet-underdeveloped seed? Perhaps so. Regardless, the cardinals were definitely eating it.

     The day before (Nov 26) I had seen a number of cardinals fooling with the cypress cones, but I guess I figured they were just “playing” with the cones. Silly human . . .

     Come to think of it, I now remember our big 2.5-year Atchafalaya Basin Bird Survey in 2002-04, where on a number of occasions I coaxed Greg Guirard to take me deep as he could into the swamp by boat so I could census the bird life there amongst permanently-flooded, pure stands of bald cypress/tupelo gum (Nyssa aquatica). As is the case with almost all climax forest systems, the diversity of bird life was relatively low in winter, consisting primarily of wood duck, osprey, several woodpecker species, yellow-rumped warbler (they're everywhere around here each winter), and, yes, cardinals. Understand, the closer to dry land you get in swamp systems, the more bird species you'll record; but once you get a half-mile or more from nearest land, the number of woodland songbirds drops percipitously. No more chickadees, titmice, gnatcatchers, kinglets, etc. Basically you're down to a few swamp specialists . . . so the, uh, robust presence of cardinals in the deep-swamp was striking.

     Were those cardinals feasting on bald cypress seed? I bet they were.

     Under his bald cypress citation, Vines adds interesting tidbits such as, “. . . the cone resin used as an analgesic [pain-killer] for wounds,” and, “The seeds are eaten by a number of species of birds, including wild ducks.” and “. . . has been known in cultivation in Europe [far from its native southeastern U.S. range, non?!?] since about 1640,” and “Fossil ancestors of bald cypress, at one time, covered the greater part of North America in company with the ginkoes, sequoias, and incense-cedars.”

fall has fallen

2010-11-30T12:26:00.000-06:00

Nutmeg Hickory Leaf (Carya myristiciformes)

26 Nov 2010, Lafayette Parish

“But ask the beasts, and they will teach you;

the birds of the air, and they will tell you;

or the plants of the earth, and they will teach you...”

Job 12:7

Down here on the Gulf Rim – at the continental border of temperate and tropical air masses – the seasons of the year tend to run into one another, making it difficult to know where one ends and another begins. Throw in a lil' global-warming and the edges grow even murkier. The real kicker, though, is that through it all, humans are getting ecologically-dumber by the minute. The divorce between human civilization and the natural world is all but complete. Perhaps I exaggerate . . . but papers have been filed, for sure . . .

Anyway, for those who do happen to pay attention to the natural world – and let's be succinct and call that world what it truly is: “Reality-with-a-capital-R” – it's cool to have the birds of the air and the plants of the earth around to remind us of what season it is.

White-throated Sparrow, photo by Russ Norwood

http://www.perceptivist.com/

Down at this latitude (about 50 miles north of the Gulf Coast), for example, we should not say that winter is here until the White-throated Sparrow has arrived and settled in. Each winter, White-throated Sparrows occupy just about any shrubby forest edge down here, including properly-arrayed urban and suburban backyards. Really, you don't even have to see them. Like so many other winter birds down here, they are very vocal, uttering their loud, musical, “tEA!” (or “dEE!” or “chEE!” or “pwEE!” depending on your ear...) orientation calls each dawn and dusk; and occasionally breaking out into their mournful “old-Sam-Pea-body” territorial breeding song.

Eastern Towhee, photo by J. Spohrer

Ditto for other local winter-resident birds, including the Eastern Towhee, that big, handsome “sparrow of the briars.” Generally, towhees prefer wilder settings, so their penetrating, “jREE!” dawn/dusk orientation call is heard only occasionally in urban/suburban forests.

Yellow-rumped Warbler, photo by Russ Norwood

http://www.perceptivist.com/

Birds that breed in North America and overwinter in the Central/South American tropics are known as Neotropical migrants; as opposed to birds that breed to our north and overwinter down here along the Gulf Coast, which are referred to as Nearctic migrants. The most common of the nearctics around these parts include species like Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, American Robin, Cedar Waxwing, Yellow-rumped Warbler, and Ruby-crowned Kinglet.

Eastern Phoebe, photo by Russ Norwood

http://www.perceptivist.com/

Another fairly common local overwinterer is the Eastern Phoebe, a graceful, mockingbird-sized flycatcher. Its drabish colors and relatively sedentary feeding habit often renders it invisible to non-birders; but its loud, reedy, “fee-BEE, fee-BEE” call echos through the woodland habitats (woodlands around water are its absolute favorite) that it frequents.

Nutmeg Hickory (Carya myristiciformes)

26 Nov 2010, Lafayette Parish

If bird-detection proves too much work, then the local trees fairly shout out in-your-face-style that fall is gone and winter's here. That's right, we do not have much of a fall foliage color show down here. What we do have is a winter fall foliage color show!

American Hornbeam Foliage (Carpinus caroliniana)

26 Nov 2010, Lafayette Parish

It is said that end-of-season foliage color is a product of that tree's metabolic wastes, sequestered in its leaves and visible only after chlorophyll production ceases. As green chlorophyll cells peter out, the oranges, yellows, and reds of these wastes are made manifest.

Sassafras (Sassafras albidum)

07 Oct 2004, probably in n. Illinois

So the situation down here is that in October and the first half of November, our trees are still working – still making and storing food – while trees of the northeastern U.S. and upper-Midwest have thrown in the towel for the year and given up their chlorophyll. The time to start looking around here for foliage color is right around Thanksgiving, at the onset of winter.

Swamp Red Maple (Acer drummondii)

19 Dec 2005, Lafayette Parish

You say you don't have no winter color? Then get you some! All of the abovementioned trees grow fine down here. Others with notable winter color at our latitude include southern sugar maple (Acer barbatum), Nuttall oak (Quercus texana), overcup oak (Q. lyrata), Shumard oak (Q. shumardii), Mexican plum (Prunus mexicana), black cherry (Prunus serotina), black gum (Nyssa sylvatica), sweet gum (Liquidambar styriciflua), witch hazel (Hamamelis virginica), winged elm (Ulmus alata), cedar elm (U. crassifolia), strawberry bush (Euonymus americana), swamp cyrilla (Cyrilla racemiflora; aka “Titi Bush”), and rusty black-haw viburnum (Viburnum rufidulum).

Even if you don't have room for any more trees at your place, take a post-Thanksgiving drive to your local woods in late November. You'll see winter color, baby. While you're driving, you may as well continue north to the Interstate-20 corridor, where you'll find Louisiana's finest winter color show. The most easily accessible winter foliage color destination around Shreveport is the Walter B. Jacobs Memorial Nature Park (http://www.caddoparks.com/memorial.cfm). In northeastern Louisiana, my personal all-time state favorite for winter foliage color is the Sicily Island Hills Wildlife Management Area (http://sicilyislandhills.com/).

a tale of two cypresses

2010-11-23T17:22:00.001-06:00

Cypresses I have known/loved:
Bald cypress (above);
Montezuma cypress (below)

     Back in the early/mid 90s, University of Louisiana-Lafayette student/Acadiana Park Nature Station naturalist Michelle Harper presented me with a seedling of a Montezuma cypress that she had found growing in a greenhouse gutter behind the biology building at ULL. Many moon ago, someone had planted a Montezuma there, and it had grown to massive proportions.

     I duly planted Michelle's gift off of the west wall of our house in an attempt to mitigate the harshness of the summer/afternoon sun against our west wall. I had heard from Texas native plant friends that Montezuma cypress was “kneeless,” as opposed to our native bald cypress, which throws knees left and right, so I plopped it in the ground a mere 8' from the house.

     In relatively short order (ca. 15 years), the Montezuma – a mere toothpick of a plant when Michelle gave it to me – has grown to a height of 70', which is about equal to that of the bald cypress that Lydia and I had planted about 50' away on the north side of our house in 1983! Truly a jack-and-the-beanstalk type situation. Apparently, Montezuma cypress appreciates our swampy, “blackjack” clay as much as bald cypress does.

     The bald cypress ranges natively from the Texas Hill Country east through Florida and north to southern Illinois, whereas the Montezuma cypress is predominately a Mexican species, natively pushing its way north of the Rio Grande only into a few of the southernmost counties of Texas.

     Though half of the foliage is gone on the two late-fall photos (above), you may note that compared to bald cypress, Montezuma cypress possesses a moderately “weepy” foliage habit – perhaps owing to the fact that Montezuma cypress leaves are a tad shorter, and its needles a tad longer, than those of bald cypress.

Bald cypress leaf (left); Montezuma cypress leaf (right)

     Both bald and Montezuma cypresses belong to the cypress family (Cupressaceae), and both belong to the genus Taxodium. Up until recently, bald (Taxodium distichum), pond (Taxodium nutans), and Montezuma (Taxodium mucronatum) cypresses, along with close California relatives coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron gigantium), and dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), from China were given their own family (Taxodiaceae); but they have recently been lumped back into Cupressaceae, still a fairly small family, now containing 29 genera and 146 species distributed throughout both hemispheres.

     The story surrounding the dawn redwood is most interesting. It was not discovered (by science, anyway...) until 1944, when a Chinese botanist found a small grove of it – part of a religious shrine, actually – in the Sichuan-Hubei region of that country. The news eventually hit the U.S., and by 1948 Harvard's Arnold Arboretum sent an expedition over to China to collect seed from the tree. Virtually every dawn redwood grown in the U.S. today comes from that original seedlot. Since its initial discovery, dawn redwood has been discovered in only a few other places in China, and is presently listed as “Critically Threatened” in the wild.

     All of these close relatives are known for the huge sizes they attain – redwoods and sequias, up to 300'; dawn redwood, bald and Montezuma cypresses, up to 200'. Do yourself a favor and check out the legendary grand champion Montezuma cypress in the village of Santa Maria del Tule in Oaxaca, Mexico (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxodium_mucronatum) – not so tall (ca. 140') but with a trunk diameter approaching 38'! And what about the grand champion bald cypress, located right here in good ol' Louisiana within the Cat Island National Wildlife Refuge in the Mississippi River backwaters just north of St. Francisville (http://www.fws.gov/refuges/profiles/index.cfm?id=43697)? Whoa. Ya'll oughta drive over to see that one. You'll need to make your trip during the dry season, as the site is often flooded under 15' of Mississippi River backwaters.

Yellow-rumped Warbler
(photo by Russ Norwood, http://www.perceptivist.com/)

One last note. This fall, when the usual “flocklet” of Yellow-rumped Warblers arrived to overwinter in our yard, I found it interesting that they immediately zipped up into the Montezuma cypress for a foraging session, eschewing all other trees, including the native bald cypress. Of course I have no idea as to what they were hunting for, but apparently the Montezuma had it – or at least more of it – than any of the other trees.

what birds eat part II

2010-11-16T15:00:00.000-06:00

Female Cardinal . . . where you been?

Photo by Russ Norwood www.perceptivist.com

“Hey me

Hey mama

Where you been?

For so long, For so long?”

– Ray LaMontagne

from “Hey Me, Hey Mama”

Blogger note: Besides a couple of photos by long-time naturalist buddy Beth Erwin (curator, Kalorama Nature Preserve, Collinston, LA) and myself, this post features the ultra-fine pics of Baton Rouge ad-man and nature photographer, Russ Norwood. Check out www.perceptivist.com!

     It happens every autumn in backyards all across . . . America? The world? I dunno. All across Louisiana, I know for sure – including here around Lafayette – beginning generally around mid-October (although this fall, not until the first week of November), and usually persisting for the next 6-8 weeks . . . one minute, it's birds galore; and the next minute, BAM! Gone.

     The sudden disappearance of birds – cardinals, chickadees, titmice, mourning doves, woodpeckers, blue jays, chickadees, titmice, cardinals, house finches, etc. in our case – that otherwise spend each and every day crowded around the feeders in one's backyard is dramatic, to say the least. Dramatic enough to be noted by even the most lackadaisical of backyard bird folks.

     So what's the deal? Where have all the birdies gone, long time passing?

     Apparently, no human knows for sure, but conventional wisdom says that backyard birds disappear each fall in response to the ripening of that year's crop of wild seed. Makes sense. Why stick around for stale, non-diverse, store-bought seed when there's a fresh supply of way-diverse wild seed hanging so tantalizingly off of plants just a few wingbeats away? I mean, a bird can return to the ol' seed trough anytime he/she wants; so why not go for the good stuff while the getting's so good?

     Regarding The Great Departure here in the pseudo-wilds of upper Lafayette parish, the backyard silence becomes deafening. Like, wow, so this is what 'quiet' really sounds like, huh? After only about a week or so, though, the chickadees slink back . . . followed a week or so later by the titmice. Apparently, these two species quickly run out of whatever wild stuff out there that happens to trump good ol' black-oil sunflower seeds.

     Of course chickadees and titmice eat far more than black-oil sunflower seeds – all manner of tiny insects, insect eggs, insect larvae, etc. – regardless, they come crawling back home in pretty short order.

Male Cardinal, Kalorama Nature Preserve, Morehouse Parish, LA

photo by Beth Erwin

The doves, cardinals, and house finches, on the other hand, stay gone the longest; apparently finding far more in the way of wild quality and quantity than do the chickadees and titmice. In the interim, what few cardinals we do notice back in the yard are coming back for water, not seed. Also, we note several of the youngest cardinals sneaking back in each dusk, obviously interested in the safer roost sites they grew up with here around the homestead.

Blue Grosbeak munchin' wild rice at Avery Island 19April2009

photo by Russ Norwood www.perceptivist.com

Ah, birds and their seeds. So inspiring. What precious little a bird needs to sustain itself, you know? Like, a few grams' worth of seed each day. St. Francis of Assisi (himself known as il povrello, the poor one) spoke of the inspiration that birds provide a person who's looking to live a more simple life.

Field Sparrow, Morehouse Parish, LA 06Nov2010

that little hint of a tuft hanging on its bill is leftover little bluestem grass seed
photo by Beth Erwin

Swamp Sparrow chomping the paint-brush-like seed of boneset (Eupatorium spp.)

                                           photo by Russ Norwood www.perceptivist.com

     I remember the first time witnessing swamp sparrows and American goldfinches devouring goldenrod seed. Tethered to a silken-chute far larger than itself, a goldenrod seed is too tiny for most humans to see or even feel. To a big ol' human, it's just totally amazing that a bird would even bother with it; but bother with it, they do. . .

     Of course most bird species do not limit themselves to a seed-only diet, since seeds are by no means year-round food items out in the wild, particularly up here in the temperate zone. As previously mentioned, small woodland birds such as woodpeckers, chickadees, titmice, and warblers are near-perpetual insect eaters, collectively rummaging through forests like a fine-toothed comb, relieving trees of the bulk of the leaf-eating stem-sucking bugs that annually infest them. What would our forests look like without these little birds? Would we even have forests to look at without them? Legendary wildlife conservationist Aldo Leopold (you must read A Sand County Almanac if you haven't already done so . . . in fact, if you've already done so, then read it again) wrote, “The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal, 'What good is it'?”

     As little as humankind thinks of or about tiny, insectivorous birds, would it not be ironic if we were to discover that it is tiny, insectivorous birds which are actually in charge of maintaining the health of the planet's forests? Or at very least, the primary care-givers to the forests?

     One day my buddy Neal Walker called to report that cedar waxwings (probably the most frugivorous of all North American bird species) were picking off aphids who were attracted to the new spring growth of a river birch outside of his kitchen window.

Cedar Waxwings devouring newly emerging blooms of green ash: “spring greens”

                                                         Baton Rouge, LA 12April2009
                                            photo by Russ Norwood www.perceptivist.com

     And it doesn't stop there. Students of bird nutrition soon learn that in their relentless search for calories, it's amazing what some birds gain sustenance from. In early spring, obvious fruit eaters like cedar waxwings, along with such dedicated seed eaters like white-throated sparrows and American goldfinches, can all be seen “getting their spring greens” from newly-sprouted flowers, samaras, etc. of deciduous trees.

Winged Elm samaras (Ulmus alata)...excellent February food for Louisiana sparrows and finches

Baby Common Moorhen learning the joys of duckweed

Lake Martin, LA 10June2006
photo by Russ Norwood www.perceptivist.com

Prothonotary Warbler, a dedicated insectivore if there ever was one, making off with a black cherry fruit

Sherburne Wildlife Management Area, Iberville Parish, LA 15June2008
photo by Russ Norwood www.perceptivist.com

Obviously, such items are packed not only with calories, but also with minerals and other micro-nutrients that these birds cannot easily procure in their normal fare. Got to get it, Papa!

what birds eat

2010-11-03T17:09:00.000-05:00

eek! ....... no, yay! ...... a mouse!

Charles Allen recently forwarded these two great blue heron photos sent to him by Theresa “tay” Lyons from Lake Authur. On the morning of October 23 she photographed the bird as it foraged around her family's grain elevator. It's probable that many of you don't know what great mousers great blue herons are. Ditto for cattle egret. I think herons and egrets in general will down anything 1) that they can catch and 2) that can fit down their gullets.

If you live over in the ag lands, rice country in particular, you're going to be dealing with mice and rats – mice and rats in such numbers and diversity that regular people could scarcely perceive or imagine.

Come harvest/post-harvest time, the rodent population duly explodes, and dinner is served – both for the rodents and the rodent-eaters. Due to the uber-high fall/winter rodent population, the diversity and numbers of rodent-eaters which they attract correspondingly rise. Great blue herons and cattle egrets are but the tip of the iceberg. Add in red-tailed hawk, red-shouldered hawk, marsh hawk, cooper's hawk, barn owl, great-horned owl, short-eared owl, mink, raccoon, and yes, coyote, and the iceberg grows. For a fact, the rice country of southwest Louisiana attracts some of the highest winter concentrations of all of the abovementioned, making it an outstanding place and time to view wildlife.

ring-billed gulls food-freakin' during a ricefield water-leveling operation

many species of sandpipers (including these Least Sandpipers), plovers, and other shorebirds

utilize rice fields during fall, winter, and spring (photo by Dave Patton)

Add in the dozens and dozens of species of other herons/egrets/ibis, ducks and geese, gulls and terns, sandpipers and other shorebirds attracted to the aquatic life of winter-flooded rice fields; as well another few dozen species of wrens, warblers, sparrows, and other songbirds that secret themselves in the dense hedgrows around irrigation canals and field edges and you've got a real smorgasboard of bird life happening. I once saw a belted kingfisher, perched happily up on a utility wire adjacent to a rice field – with a medium sized crawfish flailing in its bill. Many of you non-rice farmers/crawfishermen would be shocked at the number of bird species that routinely utilize crawfish in their diets.

Barred Owl basks after successful fishing trip

photographer either Dave Patton or Stacey Scarce...or somebody else.....

     I've got a billion winter rice field stories, but of my favorites involves a pair of coyotes that I watched for an entire cold, sunless December afternoon behind Paul and Darnelle McIntosh's northern Vermilion parish home. There in a large rice field complex, they were stalking mice and rats along the narrow, brushy levees stitched throughout the rice fields. Carefully creeping and sniffing, they worked as a team, pouncing high like buckin' broncos onto the poor rodents they'd find.

     I've had a quasi-obsessive interest in food habits of animals – especially birds – for a long time now. Maybe it's because I've taken the time to learn to identify both animals and vegetation (alas, many birders choose to remain oblivious to the identity of the non-bird animals and plants they are constantly encountering in the field; likewise for plant-lovers on their field trips). Maybe it's just because I love food.

                                                                     Birds 'n Berries

Eastern Bluebird with native viburnum fruit, Dauphin Island, AL, 17 Oct 2010

photo by Dave Cagnolatti

At the behest of an ornithologist friend, I coordinated a five-year Survey of Bird Frugivory in Louisiana (Journal of La. Ornithology Vol. 4 No. 2, Winter 1998). Frugivory is the act of eating fleshy fruits such as blueberries, hollies, cherries. Together with 25 other field observers, we amassed a database of over 1,000 bird/fruit observations involving 67 bird species which were observed consuming some 57 species of fruits (mostly native).

red-bellied woodpecker eating wild hawthorn fruits

photo by Beth Erwin

     Probably half of the observations were of the “expected” variety, such as robins and cedar waxwings eating holly fruits, or mockingbirds eating elderberries. On the other hand, I think that all of us were uniformly surprised at the degree of frugivory exhibited by woodpeckers. In all, we recorded 7 species of woodpeckers eating all manner of fruits including persimmon, black cherry, sumac, mulberry, dogwood, and many more.

     Another surprise involved the degree of frugivory exhibited by flycatchers, particularly during the fall migration period (July-Oct), in which they focused on two plant species in particular: prickly ash (Zanthoxylum clava-herculis) and rough-leaf dogwood (Cornus drummondii); and were also substantially interested in bird pepper (Capsicum annuum glaberisculum).

     In terms of diversity of bird species attracted, know what the all-time best plants were? King of 'em all was hackberry (Celtis laevigata), followed closely by Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia), and . . . (drum roll) . . . poison ivy. Yep. Poison ivy berries proved attractive to not only the typically frugivorous species like robins and mockingbirds, but also several species each of woodpeckers, warblers, and sparrows, not to mention chickadees, titmice, kinglets, and others.

evil poison ivy (note tiny berries in back)...wanna know what it's good for? ask just about any bird or mammal....

photo by James Beck

Other high-scoring plants included black cherry, red mulberry, elderberry, pokeberry, southern magnolia, wax myrtle, and black gum.

hobo gardening

2010-10-29T15:09:00.000-05:00

creeping spot-flower (Acmella decumbens)

“Do not think about tomorrow;

let tomorrow come and go.
Tonight you're in a nice warm boxcar,
safe from the wind and snow.”

from Hobo's Lullaby by Reeves & Goebel

     Yes indeed, no time like the fall for learning about the gentle art of Hobo Gardening down on the Gulf Coast. Fall is when all the prettiest of the “pretty weeds” bloom down here; so now's the time to study up on 'em.

     So what's Hobo Gardening? It's a gardening precept involving the release of enough control on the part of the gardener, so as to allow the possibility of unpurchased/unplanted-but-oh-so-cool new plants to find their way into one's garden. God's the designer. Animals, wind, and floodwaters are the landscape crew. All that remains for us humans to do is to learn what's cool enough to keep by simply allowing unknown interlopers to grow where they sprout until they finally bloom – as opposed to weeding everything that comes up that you didn't plant there yourself. Savy??

     Plant-wise, the best Hobo Garden candidates are local species – native or introduced – which are prone to “run” via the production, dispersal, and germination of lots of viable seed. In 2+ decades of promoting the use of wild plants in garden settings, I cannot count the number of times I've been admonished by gardeners who say, "Oh, but doesn't that (insert name of wild plant here) 'run'?" Uh, yes m'am, it's a runner. It's a rambler and a gambler and a sweet-talking ladies man. I mean, what else can a person give for an answer? Here's a group of plants that will spread beautifully in many many situations (roots of trees, ditches, niches, floods, droughts, what-have-you...) -- without your help, advice, or expense. For the love of God, if they run, be thankful........and just pull 'em up where you don't want 'em!

     It does help if the Hobo Garden is located out in rural – even suburban – areas which are prone to receive a much higher diversity of potential species than in urban areas where for generations such plants have been systematically eliminated as “undesirables.” Plus, far fewer hobo lanscape crew members hang out in urban settings. That said, if you happen to live in the city, consider a modified verson of Hobo Gardening: human-assisted hobo gardening (see below).

                                                                      local wild aster

     Throughout much of the U.S., one of the most common and easiest to “obtain” of these Hobo Garden candidates are the wild asters. Here in south Louisiana we've got 3-5 native aster species constantly floating around on wind and water. They all bloom in the fall. Most all of them possess very tiny leaves – no more than several millimeters long/wide; so it's fairly easy to learn to recognize them in their non-blooming stage. They average 12-30” in height/width, and will happily grow, bloom, and reseed in just about any sunny site.

     Creeping spot flower (Acmella decumbens) is another of my local favorites. It's a low groundcover that squeezes into spaces that the lawn mower can't get to. Come fall, voila', it combines beautifully with all manner of store-bought and other Hobo species.

smartweed nestles in with bird pepper

Lydia (my hobo gardening partner) dislikes smartweed (Polygonum amphibium[?]). She apparently thinks it's a tad more weedy than smart. But since I'm the main weeder in our garden, and because I happen to think it's smarter than weedier, I leave it wherever I find it; and man does it combine beautifully when it comes into bloom.

                                                   mist flower and ironweed (coarse foliage)
                                                   found their way into this spot, where i had
                                                  originally planted some black-eyed susans;
                                                  now, the black-eyed susans do their thing
                                                  in summer, and the mist & iron take over
                                                  in fall.............................

     Whether they know it or not, I guess everybody's favorite hobo plant here is blue mistflower (Conoclinum coelestinum, formerly Eupatorium coelestinum). Only an idiot would weed this, eh? Alas, most gardeners don't recognize this plant when it's not in bloom; so BAM! They weed it out. Solution. Study the foliage of this plant when/where you find it in bloom. Armed with a tiny bit of knowledge/experience, and patience, you'll learn what to keep and what to weed.

                                                            still-green pokeberry fruit
                                                            pokeberry is gorgeous in
                                                            all stages of flower & fruit

     Hobo trees and shrubs are fair game as well. Locally, rough-leaf dogwood (Cornus drummondii), elderberry (Sambucus canadensis), and pokeberry (Phytolacca americana) are all fine examples. True, they tend to throw lots of seed, and they're harder to weed out in places where you don't want them, but in certain situations, they're wonderful additions. And birds love 'em.

                                                   Human-assisted Hobo Gardening

     Not actual Hobo Gardening – but the next best thing – is human-assisted hobo gardening (note small caps.....). This is where the gardener actually collects seed of true Hobo Garden candidates from remote sites and tosses the seed into his/her own garden. From there, the plant runs where it will.Then, just pull it up where you don't want it, and leave it where you do want it.

                                                    Salvia coccinea 'Cheniere au Tigre'
                                                    we got our start of this from the legendary
                                                    native plantswoman Zoe Segrera Lynch
                                                    who grew up on Cheniere au Tigre.
                                                    Note the pink-colored "sports" in the
                                                    back. This plant throws a lot of pink seed!

                                          turk's cap behaves best in shade -- even amongst roots
                                          of oak trees! obviously, it's a hummer/butterfly favorite,
                                          and birds love its fall fruits......

     For Gulf Rim gardeners, three outstanding examples of hobo plants to consider for human-assistance are tropical sage (Salvia coccinea), bird pepper (Capsicum annuum spp.), and turk's cap (Malvaviscus drummondii) – all native to Louisiana's cheniere forests down on the coast.

     Believe me, the list of potential Hobo Garden and hobo garden candidates goes on an on, ya'll -- particularly way down here on the Gulf Rim, where we've got a ton of herbaceous plant diversity.

     The coolest thing about Hobo Gardening is the "letting go and letting God" part......again, this calls for patience, and patience is a much needed virtue these days.....the only way to get it is to practice it....there's just something so..........................liberating.....................about reliquishing control................i guess 'cause truly we humans are not in control...........our brains have just temporarily convinced us otherwise......

     In my 27 years of experience at this particular garden, God's designs have consistently outperformed my own -- ecologically, functionally, and aesthetically. It's truly been an awesome wondrous thing to witness.

on est parti au Grand Texas, part III

2010-10-26T15:23:00.000-05:00

As you might imagine, Caddo Lake underwent substantial changes once the white folks took over in the early/mid nineteeen century. Before the arrival of European settlers, the natives were content to let God call the shots. They located their villages high up on the tops of the many hillocks around and in the lake, thus rendering them impervious to the occasional floods that were generated whenever too much water came down the Red River.

     Just as the Atchafalaya Basin occasionally relieves the flood-swollen Mississippi River of part of its burden during high-water times, so did Caddo Lake function in similar fashion for the Red River, receiving Red River floodwaters up around present-day Jefferson, TX, funneling that water through the Caddo Lake system, and returning what was left of the overflow back to the Red River just below present-day Mooringsport, LA (ca. 15 mi. N of Shreveport). But, riding high on the steamboat technology revolution that had gripped the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, Henry Shreve developed a shallow-draft steamer, suitable for the shallower waters of the Red River and other western rivers. Once this had occurred a cry went up from the money dudes to dam the foot of Caddo Lake in order to artificially maintain water levels sufficient for year round steamboat travel up through the lake. As is still normally the case these days, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wasted no time in siding with those financial interests, allowing them to throw up a rinky-dink of a dam just below Morringsport.

     Well, from a natural/cultural perspective, that was all she wrote. Soon enough, New Orleans shipping interests were opening up offices and warehouses in Jefferson, TX, creating an overnight boom town there. Everybody was getting rich.

     At the same time, the white folks who were settling in around Caddo Lake – mostly dudes and dudettes running away from former lives – joined in the party, selling fish, ducks, firewood, just about anything that wasn't nailed down, to the new capitalist class.

     That much money, stirred into that particular, uh, brand of humanity stirred up much craziness. The main thing is that the criminal element (that is, those criminals who had chosen to maintain the criminal careers they had established back East) flourished, much to the dismay of those folks who had truly started all over at Caddo, checking their criminal pasts at the door as they settled there. Monterrey Landing (on the Louisiana side of the lake, of course) was the most notorious, sporting a race track, saloons, brothels, all the accoutraments of low-living. It was said that Jean LaFitte had some pretty stout connections at Monterrey. . .

     Things got so bad that a vigilante group called The Regulators was formed; only they began killing not only outlaws, but also any other citizen who they didn't particularly care for. Things got so bad that another vigilante group called The Moderators was formed for the purpose of killing off The Regulators. Things got so bad that Sam Houston hisself had to make a personal appeal for the two factions to quit – appealing, it is said, to their sense of patriotism. Whew!

     By 1873 Henry Shreve finally succeeded in clearing The Great Raft on the Red River, a massive, 130-mile, post-Pleistocene log jam that had formed from well above present-day Shreveport down nearly all the way to present-day Natchitoches. And – in the parlance of our time – BAM! The Red River flowed like mad, Shreveport (I wonder where THAT name came from?) was formed, and Caddo Lake's steamboat party pretty much dried up, with New Orleans shipping interests pulling the rug out from under the lake's citizenry so fast that they scarcely knew what hit 'em.

     Economic life went on, however. At some point around the turn of the century, Ladybird Johnson's dad, a Mr. Taylor, came in and lobbied for a rail spur into the Texas side of the lake. Tourism? Nope. Fish. And ducks. He bought up all the fish and ducks that the locals could supply him with, shipping iced barrels to Chicago, Kansas City, wherever.

     Once the seasonal overflow of the Red River was tamed, Caddo Lake water levels dropped significantly, exposing freshwater mussel beds which could then be accessed in thigh to waist-deep water. Fresh mussel meat for the masses? Nope (that would be some sort of Indian move, wouldn't it?). Freshwater pearls for the elite. Uh-huh. Pearl buyers from the world over descended on Caddo, buying up every pearl that the locals could dig out. Pearl hunting was a tough business. Lots and lots of musseling had to be done in order to find a single pearl, y'understand. It was said that a few of the locals were better at it than most.

     One guy who stayed at it the hardest also happened to be a lush. Anyway, whenever this guy found a pearl or two, he'd quickly sell them, pocket the cash, and run over to the notorious St. Paul Bottoms in Shreveport, drinking and, uh, partying until he was out of cash. On one particularly extravagant run, he had stayed so drunk for so long that one morning they found him on the streets of St. Paul Bottoms, crawling around and doodling in horse dung until he'd find a grain of corn, which he'd make a big show of smuggly pocketing, as if it were a freshwater pearl . . .oh-oh . . . time to go home . . .

     During prohibition, Caddo Lake adapted a huge moonshine industry. Then, somebody found oil and gas on the Louisiana side. I'm running out of space for these items, though. Read the books!

     You know what is most captivating about this eminently captivating place? The spanish moss. Yes. We've (Gulf Coasters, anyway) all seen spanish moss, but nowhere like in Caddo Lake. Another decent example of “extra-topping” servings of spanish moss would be Lake Bistineau, just southeast of Shreveport; but honestly, it's nowhere near that of Caddo Lake.

     Caddo Lake's a freak. “Disneyesque” is the word that first came out of my wide-open mouth upon first seeing it. Can you imagine? Disneyesque? Oh but no. Never never never would you see such a thing in never never land.

     Caddo Lake – the treed portions anyway, which accounts for over half the lake – is one contiguous moss curtain, gauzily enfolding and muting every sight and every sound. Enveloping all. What ever happens at Caddo stays safely hung in Caddo's moss.

Through it all, Caddo Lake's Moss Curtain has veiled – and continues to veil – all of the harshness of its life... continues to forgive those who might think they need forgiveness...continues to suffuse mystery and otherworldliness throughout.

on est parti au Grand Texas, part II

2010-10-19T16:37:00.000-05:00

Before i get started, those wishing to read more about Caddo Lake should check out 2 books:
Caddo Was... by Fred Dahmer, and Every Sun That Rises edited by T. Sitton and J.H. Conrad. Julie Dunand Amy, a friend who has been making very regular trips to Caddo Lake since she was a kid, loaned these 2 books to me. Like Caddo Lake itself, they are utterly fascinating books, both comprised of the words of 2 old-time lifelong residents of the lake, Fred Dahmer and Wyatt Moore.

two very typical views of the upper reaches of Caddo Lake

In the beginning of his book, Caddo Was . . ., Fred Dahmer pretty much nails it when he states, "the history of Caddo Lake is colorful, complex, and controversial." Honestly, there's no way that i could do it any justice in this lil' blog, so i guess i'll just focus on the most obvious highlights.

Before any white folks arrived, Caddo Lake was occupied by many many Kadohadacho (later slanged out to "Caddo") Indian villages. The Kadohadacho called the lake, Tso'to, which meant something like "sparkling water falling over red banks." By all accounts, the Kadohadacho were peaceful people who were known as big-time farmers, traders, and artisans by First Nation peoples from all over. Their lands stretched from Caddo Lake all the way south to present day Nacagdoches, TX. The Kadohadacho were said to be trading as far away as the Illinois Territory in 1715.

In fact -- and i hope i'm not digressing too much here -- it wouldn't surprise me if the Kadohadacho turned out to be the trading destination described by Spanish castaway Cabeza De Vaca, who was taken as a slave by the Karenkawa Indians in the early 1500s near present-day Galveston. After a few years, the Karenkawa Chief trusted De Vaca enough to designate him a trading emissary, sending him "several days north" with pots of fish oil and other goods to trade with a certain powerful trading group (the Caddo???) for spear points and other items not readily available to the Karenkawas.

Anyway, the first written/Caucasian mention of Tso'to lake was as "Sodo Lake" by a traveler named George Bonnell in 1840. That name eventually morphed into "Soda Lake," which roughly describes the southernmost portion of present-day Caddo Lake, near where Twelve-mile Bayou (near Mooringsport, LA just above Shreveport) is today. Interestingly, at about that same time, the lower end of Caddo Lake was also known as "Fairy Lake," thus designated on U.S. Army Corps of Engineer maps of the time. Later, "Fairy Lake" was corrupted to "Ferry Lake," a name which today serves as a place name for a tiny community on the northeastern end of Caddo Lake. See how colorful, complex, and controversial everything gets?

Long before Bonnell, the first Caucasians to reach Caddo Lake were the survivors of the 1685 LaSalle expedition. Five years later, it was again mentioned by ol' "Iron Hand" Tonti, LaSalle's right-hand-man, who himself had gotten separated from the expedition, and was looking for it. Only one year after Tonti, Spanish expeditionary leader Domingo de los Rios reached the Kadohadachos from the southwest. French from the east, Spanish from the southwest. Oh, them poor Indians! In no time, the French and Spanish became entangled in an ongoing battle for the Kadohadacho lands! And what did the Kadohadacho do? They supplied both sides with food and friendship, and attempted to act as peacemakers between them!

Fred Dahmer mentions that the word Tejas itself, meaning "friend," comes from the Caddo, who used it so often that the French and Spanish explorers thought that was the Caddo's name for their land. Thus, the territorial name of "Texas" was born.

The battle for Caddo land raged on for years. First, the French claimed it. Then they ceded it (and all of the Louisiana Territory) to Spain. Then Spain ceded it back to France. Then the French sold it to the U.S.

And yeah, you guessed it: in the meantime, white folks' whiskey, contagious diseases, and broken promises pretty much did the Caddo in. Shortly after the Louisiana Purchase, the U.S. and Spain (who owned present-day Mexico and Texas at the time) still had no idea who owned Caddo Lake -- nor the entire Sabine River drainage for that matter.

mercy sakes but it's dense up in he-ah

Even after the U.S. purchased the Caddo Lake site from the Kadohadacho in 1835, surveyors simply could not properly naviagate the site in order to draw up proper maps/boundaries between Louisiana and the Texas Territory (still owned by Spain). Thus, Caddo Lake and the entire Sabine River drainage became a de facto "No Man's Land" -- unclaimed by either side, and highly attractive to all manner of skallywags, n'er-do-wells, cult leaders, runaways, smugglers, etc. . . . . and that's where we'll pick up the story in 'on est parti au Grand Texas, part III' . . . stay tuned ya'll.

pink/tropical inspiration

2010-10-17T16:58:00.000-05:00

roseate skimmer, 25 sept 2010, downtown lafayette, la.

photo by George Forest

Before i get to part II of 'On est parti au Grand Texas', hows about a mild detour into the world of local pink organisms? Good then..............actually, this post was inspired by a recent photo (above) supplied by George Forest, life-long lafayette-saints-streets native; plus, it's breast cancer awareness month.

Back in April 1982, Lydia and I finally moved back to Acadiana -- where we truly belong, y'know -- to the self-same spot where we live today. The first organism i remember seeing at our place was a pink dragonfly, a roseate skimmer. That near-neon visage, against that spring-green backdrop, remains one of only a few dozen indelibly-burned images in my brain today.

A pink dragonfly! I had never seen one before.

The roseate skimmer belongs to a genus (Orthemis) of tropical dragonflies. It is the only species of the genus that has managed to expand its range as far north as the U.S. Presently, its U.S. range map shows it occurring as far north as southern Kansas in the continental interior; and, hugging tightly to the Atlantic Coast, it's been recorded as far north as Delaware, i believe.

Interestingly, the roseate skimmer was first recorded in the U.S. only recently, around 1875, from the Florida Keys. It spent 60 years establishing itself there before radiating north and west. I have no idea as to when it finally reached Louisiana; but i certainly do not remember it from my childhood days (1950s-1960s) in southern Evangeline parish. Perhaps it was restricted to our coastal zone at that time; but, for real, i have no idea. Today, it seems fairly common throughout south-central Louisiana -- particularly so in the Atchafalaya Basin. Yet another example of a tropical species' northward march in (probable) response to climatic warming trends.

While we're on the subjects of 'pink' and 'tropical' . . .

roseate spoonbill, 16 march 2005, Lake Martin (St. Martin parish, LA)

. . . hows about this pink thing? Yeah. The "Cajun Flamingo," more properly known as the roseate spoonbill. Like the roseate skimmer, the roseate spoonbill is primarily a tropical species. Actually there are only 6 spoonbill species in the world, five of which are confined to the Old World (eastern hemisphere) tropics. The roseate spoonbill is the only New World spoonbill, restricted mostly to South and Central America, and only nudging its way northward into the U.S. Gulf Rim (coastal Texas, Louisiana, and south Florida).

Prior to the Lacey Act of 1919 (prohibiting the practice of plume-hunting), the wings of roseate spoonbills were in high demand as fans for "fashionable" ladies, restulting in this species near-total extirpation from what little of the U.S. it had managed to establish itself in. As late as the 1950s, Louisiana ornithologist George Lowery declared it "very rare" in our state, confined almost entirely to a couple of very isolated rookeries in Cameron parish. Fortunately, it has made a strong comeback, and now breeds as far north as Miller's Lake in Evangeline parish (south-central Louisiana), and seems to be slowly spreading eastward into Terrebonne parish.

Even through the 1980s it was sufficiently rare as to be consistently mistaken for a flamingo, by southwestern Louisiana rice farmers, as it gradually edged its way northward into that part of the state. During that time, at the Acadiana Park Nature Station in Lafayette, we received a fairly steady stream of "flamingo" phone reports from farmers and/or farmers wives -- thus the nickname, "Cajun Flamingo."

That said, I'll hasten to add that several bona fide greater flamingo reports exist for Louisiana, all of them from the coastal zone, the most recent of which occurred only a year ago in Cameron parish. So be on the look out . . . keep your eyes peeled, as my dad used to say . . . and keep your cameras at the ready. . .

on est parti au Grand Texas, part I

2010-10-15T15:19:00.000-05:00

Originating at Fyffe's Corner, Harrison County Road 2198 is only about 5 miles long, terminating at the Shady Glade Restaurant, Motel, and RV Park in the tiny village of Uncertain, TX.

Uncertain is perched on the western "shore" of Caddo Lake, a 40,000+ acre lake/cypress swamp complex that straddles the Louisiana-Texas line just above Shreveport. The origin of the name "Uncertain" is, uh...uncertain. Some say it was originated by the U.S. Postal Service as a best-fit designation for the site, where postmen simply dumped mail addressed to various of the swamp rats inhabiting the unreachable upper reaches of the adjacent swamp. In the opening pages of Recipes from Uncertain Cooks, an extra-fine little cookbook put out by members of the Church of Uncertain (a sincerely appropo name for a church, non?) mention, four additional how-Uncertain-got-its-name theories are presented, including 1) steamboat captians plying the waters of Caddo Lake were UNCERTAIN if they were in Texas or Louisiana, 2) there was an UNCERTAIN hunting/fishing lodge near the present location of Uncertain, which was somewhat of a landmark, 3) during a local election to determine if the area was to be "wet" or "dry," the outcome was UNCERTAIN, and 4) akin to the postal service theory, when the city charter was mailed to Austin for name selection, the blank for the name of the city was filled in with "UNCERTAIN".

Cross a tiny bridge east out of Uncertain and you're on Taylor Island, a 70+ acre sand mound rising up from surrounding swamp -- which is where Larry Amy, Kevin Courville, and i spent 6 luxorious days of music-making, fishing, cooking, silliness, and generalized R&R, in a pleasantly-rickety old camphouse named "duckweed," which, without further elucidation, appropriately described our day-to-night-to-day-again agenda for the trip.

a view out of camp duckweed's back porch

back gallery of camp duckweed, where we spent the majority of our time (for those into deeper states of relaxation, there's even a day-bed up in there)

Larry, the trip's techno dude, quickly set up a recording studio there on the back gallery of Duckweed. Daily sessions came like clockwork: 7:30am, 2:30pm, and 8:00pm. In between, we fished, cooked, and laughed -- hard.

There's so much to say about Caddo Lake that it's truly hard to know where to begin. For starters, a little ecological profile: Though many of the old-timers swore that Caddo Lake was formed by the same (1911-12) New Madrid earthquake series that formed Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee, it's pretty apparent by now that it was scoured out by numerous overwash floods from the nearby Red River -- particularly those floods occurring after the formation of the massive 130 mile log jam on the Red River that stretched from present-day Caddo Lake, south to nearly Natchitoches, and before Henry Shreve dismantled the jam in 1873. So it's a pretty recent thing, y'know.

Much of the Louisiana side of Caddo Lake consists of open water, dotted here and there with old cypresses. Most of the Texas side of the lake is not really a lake at all, but a massive, old-growth cypress-tupelo gum swamp, crisscrossed by hundreds of bayous, bayoulettes, sloughs, ponds, what-have-you. The shorelines of the swamp support cool vegetation such as American snowbell (Styrax americana), buttonbush, river birch, and swamp privet. Cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis; in full bloom during our stay) dotted the dry swamp floor in numerous places. In every snippet of open water, no matter how small, aquatic vegetation covers the water in lush abundance; dominated by American lotus, water lily, and spatterdock.

above, water lily (Nymphaea odorata) below, spatterdock (Nuphar advena)

Numerous sandy hillocks arise around the perimeter of the entire complex, some forming islands, some remaining on the mainland. Lower elevations of the hillocks support bottomland hardwood forest vegetation including delta post oak, green ash, sweetgum, persimmon, hackberry, and American elm. Tying both the swamps and the lower elevation forests together is spanish moss -- more spanish moss than you've probably ever seen before -- casting a gauzy veil over everything. It's like you're dreaming thru a smokey gray haze all the livelong day. "Disneyesque" was what blurted out of my mouth, first time i saw it. Which is whacky, y'know, in that the scene is anything but Disneyesque. It's real all right, and it's in our face everywhere you travel by water.

If any of you have wondered what the Atchafalaya Basin might have looked like before it was stripped of its timber in 1875-1930, go ahead and have a look at Caddo Lake.

Kevin, feverishly documenting moss . . .

By mid-slope, the forest morphs into a pine-oak-hickory affair, featuring massive specimens of loblolly pine, black gum (Nyssa sylvatica), mockernut hickory, and several oak species. The very tops of the hillocks, called "glades" by the locals, featured a full-blown. dry-mesic, post-oak savannah habitat type.

Thus, almost wherever you go, you have at least 4 major habitat types to explore -- all neatly stacked for your convenience. Birdwise, i honestly thought we'd see more than we did, given we stayed there during the near-peak of fall migration. We saw a good number of birds, though; the most impressive being white-breasted nuthatch (in Louisiana, common only around Shreveport), which apparently lives up in the higher-elevation hardwoods on a year round basis.

Next post: Word sketches of the weird, whacky, wonderful, controversial cultural history of Caddo Lake.

da kang bee

2010-09-22T10:24:00.000-05:00

the dapper, infamous, "Bee Martin" (aka eastern kingbird)

luxuriates in a bed of rough-leaf dogwood berries

(photo by stephen "salty" saltamachia)

like a bird

on a wire

like a drunk

in a midnight choir

i have tried

in my way

to be free

-- leonard cohen

oh yeah..........wanna talk about a badass lil' bird? then let's have a look at the eastern kingbird.......it belongs to the bird genus Tyrannus, which really says it all...... it is an absolute tyrant of the airwaves........in his 1938 book, The Bird Life of Louisiana, harry oberholser writes, "The Kingbird is so called because of its habit of attacking and driving away all other birds from the vicinity of its nest, particularly the larger species like hawks and crows . . . so vicious is it in its attacks on even large birds that they seldom stay to fight it out, but escape as rapidly as possible."

back in the day, we called them "bee martins," a nickname that supposedly arose from their propensity to take honeybees buzzing in and out of bee hives..............i've never seen that happen; but i have on many occasions witnessed their attacks on birds..........poor purple martins, for example........too bad that they often choose nesting sites out in the open country -- in kingbird territory -- for kingbirds give them no quarter. i've seen bee martins dive atop flying purple martins, grabbing them by the scruff of the neck and occasionally riding them all the way down to the ground (a hated place for a purple martin).......and as oberholser alluded above, slow-moving crows and hawks are no match for the aerial mastery of the kingbird. should these big boys cross into kingbird airspace or nest space, the bee martins dive on them and peck their poor heads for as long as they deem necessary; sometimes seemingly stretching the attacks out to the point of personal amusement.

perhaps owing to its aggressive nature, the eastern kingbird is the only bird i know of that nests pretty much where it dam well pleases........when it comes to nesting -- or even to life in general -- most birds are into concealment..........not so for the bee martin........it's been noted nesting very high or quite low in forest edges, orchards, young open-grown live oaks in front yards, even on fence rails!

several years ago, i noted eastern kingbirds and western kingbirds nesting together around a campground near emporia, kansas........man, would i have loved to hang around and see how they worked that arrangement out..............................................

here in louisiana, eastern kingbirds are pretty common -- especially around pastures, marshes, prairies, parks, and other open areas -- during the spring/summer nesting season.....often, observers hear their raucous "Kree!Kree!Kreep!" screams well before spotting them. eastern kingbirds have carved out a massive breeding range here in north america, stretching from northern british columbia and ontario, to the maritime provinces, and southward through the high plains, great plains, and all of the eastern u.s.

during the fall months, eastern kingbirds assemble into traveling flocks of various sizes, from several birds to hundreds of birds....as with many fall-migrating birds, they travel southbound in the daytime (as opposed to spring migration, when most songbirds become nocturnal migrants), gradually draining westward into gulf coastal mexico, thence due south into their winter homes in the deep interior of south america.........given the power of their flight, together with their fierce nature, my guess it that migration is a trip that they probably enjoy; as opposed to most other songbird species that tend more to slink around with visions of great peril.

all eight species of u.s. Tyrannus flycatchers are masters of aerial power and agility.........they all possess the same bill shape as well: a long but wide thing, tapering smoothly to a tiny hook at the tip......a snapping beak is what it is; and these birds will readily snap up just about any insect/arthropod that moves...even millipedes....i've even heard of eastern kingbirds plunging for minnows.....

during fall migration, however, many kingbird and other flycatcher species move from a protein-rich insect/arthropod diet to a carbohydrate-rich wild berry diet.................recently, jay huner wrote that a small flock of traveling bee martins cleaned out substantial clumps of elderberry along his driveway in central louisiana.....they also love dogwood berries (as "salty" so beautifully captured via the attached photo), virginia creeper, supplejack, viburnum, and wild grapes.

in reality, relatively few birds are "free" .................. most are so preoccupied with survival, you see........but a few, like the bee martin, do actually live the 'good life,' nesting almost wherever they please, and snatching food out of thin air whenever they or their dependents feel hungry...

sentimental journey

2010-09-13T09:59:00.000-05:00

                                    "Spin me back down the years and the days of my youth . . . "

                                                                   --   Jethro Tull, from 'Thick as a Brick"

     this installment is not about nature, ya'll; unless you count the nature of cultural change..........

     on 10 sept, i drove up to haynesville, la. to do a talk for their annual butterfly festival....know where haynesville is? it's barely in louisiana -- maybe four miles from the arkansas line -- 250 miles from lafayette...................and at least a couple of generations removed from any existing post-modern culture.

     i'd been near, but never to haynesville, in my day; so i looked forward to the trip, remembering other nearby communities that i had been to, and had so enjoyed......but i could not exactly remember why. . .

     jumping off I-49 north of natchitoches, i had slipped the (relatively, i guess...) new allman bros. cd that a lafayette musician buddy had just given me, and by the time i had hit the first cotton field of the trip, just outside of coushatta, the sparse, rustic strains of dual (warren haynes & derek trucks....ya'll really oughta check this album ["Hitting the Note"] out..........) slide acoustic guitars were introducing greg allman's aching, 'hard times' ....... jerking me with a tactible shiver back into the years and the days of my youth....................growing up in ville platte, la in the 50s & 60s, we actually had a cotton field in town, not too far away from school (well, nothing was too far away from anything in ville platte...), where for a spell, we'd pick cotton before school (when them cotton bolls were heavier with dew....) for 2-cent-a-pound.

     but what had really given me that shiver there outside of coushatta was in instant memory of sharecroppers, the people who didn't pick cotton for fun.....they picked it -- and spent many more hours hoeing it -- for their lives............funny how during my dad's generation (ca. 1920s & 30s), the majority of folks around ville platte tended crops and livestock....for a living; but by the 1960s sharecroppers & small farm owners weren't even on local society's radar.......they were background noise......noticed only by merchants and bankers when they couldn't make their bills......yet they were the backbone -- the moral compass -- of what passed for "society" back then....................

     it's really no wonder how the blues got invented, ya'll..............

     anyway, the main thing that a traveler from far-away worlds notices up there on US371 is the roadside signage........just as in the post-modern world, it's everywhere; only it's different..............it's mostly wooden, and, again, it's wordage recalls what today would be considered the distant past. up there, convenience stores sit like a recent idea......all are independently owned, or at best, locally-franchised, with names like 'pak-a-bag' or 'handee-bag' .... i noted locally-franchised chicken joints named, 'chick-a-dilly'...........

     passing through the relatively large, I-20 town of minden, and turning right -- just past the Mt. Calm Elderly Apartments, you veer north-northeast, past 'the friendliest travel center in the u.s.' (just a gas station/cafe in the middle of the woods; but i'd bet that it's friendly.....) and you're really spinning back through the years.............

     i held out for a gas stop until i got to haynesville.....a town about the size of mamou or sunset......it only had 3 gas stations.....one of them, the one with the adjoining cafe, was closed......i pulled into the next one and an attendant (the owner, i think) actually came up and asked, "can i help you?"........i said, "yeah, ya'll take credit cards?" he goes, "uh...yeah....but we're out of gas...try that next one, around the corner, right across from the bank...." apparently the combination of the butterfly festival and the local high school football game (haynesville high's 'golden tornadoes') had caused a temporary blip in fuel demand...............anyway, i did like he said and landed at one of those locally-owned convenience stores, got out (no attendant there) and noted mechanical gas pumps..........that's right kids, no digital pumps up that way.......just as in the 1970s, these pumps have mechanical odometer-like dials.........no place to stick no credit card.....you pull on this armature type thing and that resets the pump and turns it on......i remember how modern such a pump seemed back in 1972....................................

     next i pulled in to the Starlight Inn to check in.....a true "motor-court" of 1950s vintage, where the attendant sits in a drive-in booth, fills out your room card for you, plops an honest-to-god room key in your hand, and you drive straight on through to your cinder-block room........replete with funky, concrete shower stall -- plastic shower curtain cracked with age -- and naked plumbing..................

     due to the heat, i guess (it had gotten up to 98F when i checked in at about 3pm), my room's window air-conditioner froze up that night, making for less-than-restful sleeping..............fortunately, the room was supplied with a complimentary, oh-so-refreshing, bar of 'beach mist' soap, to get me off and running the next morning.

     to a person -- black, white, and latino -- the townsfolk were friendly and courteous; looking at you directly in the eye to say, "good morning" or "hot, ain't it!?!" or "that'll be $7.28" as opposed to the sideways glances you (or at least i) get in the post-modern world.

     despite the sign that said "welcome to haynesville -- the butterfly capital of the world" there were no more butterflies around than any other rural louisiana town at this time of year......early fall, by the way, is the butterfly season across the gulf south............they did have a fine old clapboard cottage on the "festival grounds" landscaped "cottage garden" style with lots of wildflowers, and loaded with plains checkerspots and pearly crescents, skippers, and other butterflies-of-passage..................sorry that i didn't get a picture of that.................i also missed photographing the butterfly festival parade...........it happened so fast.......basically, a car or two with dignitaries and the town fire truck (blue!) loaded with golden tornado cheerleaders, on a 2-3 block parade route.............

     there were probably as many folks from south arkansas as from north louisiana at the festival.....all super-friendly and in a festive mood, regardless of the nearly-triple-digit weather.........................a good old-fashioned time was had by all...................

louisiana plant-lovers bookshelf

2010-09-03T12:14:00.000-05:00

ya'll remember books, doncha? they've got pages....thin slips of paper......that you read then turn then read some more...........................................yeah, these days -- more than ever before -- you can say that in general books are a waste of perfectly good trees.................................still, for those of us with inquiring minds, most books have yet to be cyberized/digitized, and so you gotta get the tome if u wanna read it. fortunately, the www is chock full of used book sellers (don't bypass 'big cyberbox' amazon; they're hooked up to vast numbers of independent used book sellers) to root thru...........................

listed/categorized below are my personal picks for "must have" books for louisiana plant lovers.

for the technical types:

Manual of the Vascular Plants of Texas -- yeah i know, it says 'texas' not 'louisiana' but believe me it's got just about everything native to our state........it's built for professional biologists, particularly botanists; so it's highly technical and painstakingly detailed in its plant descriptions......it also provides global distribution information for each plant genus and family (e.g. "Salvia -- About 700 species distributed throughout the world but mostly in temperate and tropical regions, centered in South America.") which i really like.
Atlas of the Vascular Plants of Louisiana -- by dale thomas and charles allen; a 3-volume wire-bound catalog of all plants growing in louisiana and of the parishes each has been recorded in.

for less-technical plant identifyers....it's unfortunate that no one has come up with any really good books specifically focused on louisiana; yet, those listed below work wonderfully for most all of our species:

Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Vines of Texas -- a fine early '60s book by professional texas naturalist robert vines..........it's a massive volume that includes 1) line drawings of most foliage, flower, and fruit, detailed distribution info, 3) habitat preferences, 4) propagation info, 5) cultural uses, 6) just enough technical description to get you what you need.
Seaside Plants of the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts -- again, despite the title, this provides best photographs of just about all louisiana native plants of importance, including numerous grasses, sedges, wildflowers, trees & shrubs.......very concise (it's meant to be taken out in the field, so it's compact), but gives a satisfactory amount of info on each species/variety.
Mississippi Trees -- recently published by the mississippi forestry commission, this book represents the template of what ALL tree identification books should aspire to.......it's got photos of not only leaves and flowers/fruits, but also bark and twigs for EVERY tree, and includes notes on habitat/ecology, wildlife value, timber value, landscaping info, and other facts. what a book!

for gardeners:

Southern Plants -- by neil odenwald and james turner.....the bible of cultural/growing/gardening recommendations for just about all garden-worthy plants that do well in in louisiana. it too provides line drawings of most foliage, flower, fruit, AND growth form and dimensions.
Basic Gardening: A Guide for the Deep South -- a self published, wirebound 'owner's manual' for the southern garden........covers all of the basic, plus tons of the freakily, uh, esoteric topics as author gail barton (career horticulture instructor from meridian, mississippi) cared to wander/careen through. thoroughly educational and thoroughly entertaining.
Native Gardening in the South -- gotta toot my own horn here......and belive me, i wouldn't; but thousands have sold since it was first published in 1992, so i can only suppose that it's a decent reference. as with my friend gail's book, it's a self-published wirebound 'owners manual' focused on gardening with southeastern u.s. native/wild plants only. like gail's, it also provides a goodly amount of historical/cultural "folk" usage, wildlife usage, propagation, maintenance, and garden design info.
Flowers Native to the Deep South -- by louisiana born-and-raised amateur naturalist, artist, writer, and educator -- the Godmother of the Gardening-with-native-plants-of-the-south movement -- the great caroline dormon....................she's the one who started it all....................she was instrumental in preserving louisiana's kisatchie national forest system, as well as the louisiana state arboretum (the first state-owned arboretum in the nation) up near chicot state park in evangeline parish. this book, and its companion, Natives Preferred were written (and illustrated with line drawings and watercolor plates)with such love, dedication, and passion, that they could not help but insprire an entire generation of native plant advocates, including my own mom, and then, me..........for a fine view of this helplessly, devastatingly, inspiringly eccentric crusader, look also for Gift of the Wild Things, a caroline dormon biography by fran holman johnson.

cultural/wildlife/"folk" users, and those who just like to read about plants:

Native Gardening in the South, 2nd Edition -- "folk" plants have always been a major interest of mine; and on this second edition, i substantially expanded the cultural/wildlife/"folk" section, incorporating louisiana bird/berry information gleaned from a 5-year louisiana bird frugivory survey that i and 25 other louisiana naturalists participated in. i also added louisiana butterfly gardening and folk usage info gleaned by charles allen and malcom vidrine.
The Wildlife Garden -- by new orleans naturalist Charlotte Seidenberg......covers all the basics, then goes right on down to the esoterics, including 'gardening for moths' which is indeed fascinating....great writing.....great reading.
The New Orleans Garden -- another by Seidenberg......overwhelmingly comprehensive history of the garden-worthy plants of new orleans......chock full of personal stories and citations of historical usages...........and new orleans has got a looooooooong history, ya'll.
Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Vines of Louisiana -- by father-daughter botanists charles allen and dawn allen newman, along with amateur louisiana native plant enthusiast harry winters.........basically an even more concise version of robert vines' trees, shrubs, and woody vines of texas book. wonderfully written, and jam-packed with tons of plant trivia.
The Cajun Prairie: A Natural History -- by biologist/professor malcom vidrine.......in this tome, malcom jettisons his technical perspective to write about a landscape that he was born and raised in -- and which he dearly loves -- the coastal tallgrass prairies of southwestern louisiana......his love comes through in this fascinating book of an all-but-extinct louisiana ecosystem, with a happy ending.
Medicinal Plants -- by shaker-trained herbalist stephen foster and botanist james duke...this is a super-concise peterson field guide that (to me) gleans only the best-authenticated/documented north american medicinal plants and uses..........includes line drawings of foliage; and in this way is helpful as an identification guide as well.
The Green Pharmacy -- by james duke.........as above, but covering a global (as opposed to continental) perspective.
The Green World -- by vermont botany professor richard klein............here's the sleeper of the group.....the darkhorse......a treasure-trove of perspective: his, as well as that of various civilizations and societies throughout human history.........he begins with the basics of plant biology, and then embarks on a stream-of-consciousness ramble through plants, peoples, and time............utterly fascinating reading, ya'll.............................................good story about this book: many moons ago, when i was working at the acadiana park nature station in lafayette, co-worker paul conover dropped this book onto a tall stack of "to read" books that had accumulated on an unused corner of my desk. figuring it was an "economic botany" book (which, indeed, it partially is...), i knew it was something i wanted to look at, but there was just too much going on.....................................one fine day i picked it up, and BAM......i was instantly hooked..............so much so that i "kleptoed" it into the safety of my home............................later, paul would ask about it, and i'd just say, "huh?" conveniently forgetting i'd ever seen it...............................................................................amazingly, it was actually written as a textbook -- one such as i've never seen before -- and paul had picked it up at a friend's garage sale, after it had failed to sell and was outright given to him......................................thankfully, paul was above to obtain another copy (for a dollar, i believe he said....), so i got to keep the copy that i had abscounded with..........................................................get it, plant lovers!