Third Quarter Report, 2010

In spite of the ecological disaster unfolding in the south eastern corner of the Louisiana,

Lake Martin remains the most unpolluted lake in the state.



And perhaps because of the oil spill, and thus people trying to avoid the dangers and depressive conditions in and around New Orleans,



we have had more people coming to do swamp tours here, and thus enjoying the birds of Lake Martin.



I do not want to take undo credit, but isn't it interesting, that I write these scathing articles in the spring and summer of 2009,



pointing to the correlation of lower water levels at Lake Martin and a decreased population of wading birds nesting in the rookery.



Then September 2009, for the first time in about 8 years, The Nature Conservancy does not pull the plug and drain the lake on schedule like it has since 2001,





and LO AND BEHOLD, spring 2010, we have more birds nesting than we had since Y2K.



Furthermore, it is now, the middle of September, and thus the end of the growing season for plants,



and so far not once has the state Wildlife and Fisheries come out and sprayed herbicide to control plants and decrease and destroy the ecology and natural beauty of the area.



Not only is an abundance of clean water important to the birds who nest at Lake Martin,



but also equally important is the floating mats of plants to host the food supply that feeds the wading birds who nest here.



So far it has been a good year at Lake Martin.



All photos are copyrighted and courtesy of Claude Nall

Why Do The Birds Nest At Lake Martin?

An abundance of trees growing in standing water year round




an abundance of food for wading birds,



and lots of alligators is why the birds nest at Lake Martin.



And that's why de la Houssaye's Swamp Tours is at Lake Martin,



because we got birds



and lots of alligators!



What a life, lay around all day sun bathing, wearing alligator skin boots!



Someone called today and wanted to know if we had lots of alligators, and I said no we had acres of alligators. She had no sense of humor apparently and hung up.





So I contemplated what constitutes lots of alligators.




Is 40 or 50 alligator sightings on one tour, lots of alligators?

Nice boots!



Then we have lots of alligators!

Well at least that is what we saw last Thursday, because we started at 7AM and by about 8:30 we had seen lots and by about 9:30 we had seen acres of alligators.


The next day, I started my first tour at 10:30 AM and we saw about 8. I actually witnessed several submerging before "we" could see them. I hate that when it is only me seeing the things I am attempting to share with my guests.

All of these photos were taken on my Louisiana swamp tour, and I assure you there were at times in a couple of places, about 8 or 10 at a time in view, when we stopped on the north side of the lake and looked around.

So if birds and alligators are what you want to see on a swamp tour, we got em, but my advise in planning your day as the weather warms up this spring is to come early. And 6 AM is not too early for me as I really like the light, fog, and abundance of wildlife that is there early on, but mostly gone by 10 AM, when most people show up for a summertime vacation swamp tour.

I know 6 AM is like going to work or school. But hey, you are on vacation, go take a long nap in the heat of the day. The best tours of the day when the temps are reaching near 90's is sunrise, and sunset. You will always see more wildlife at that time of the day in the heat of spring and summer.

So back to the tour...

And... right in the midst of acres of alligators, we discovered that the mulberry tree which is growing on the base of a Bald Cypress tree, about 1/4 mile from dry land was fruiting and ripe. It was the sweetest mulberries I have ever eaten! I assume the pH of swamp water is perfect for flavorful mulberry production.

We got our fingers all purple with sticky mulberry juice and indulged ourselves thoroughly, as my guests from the U.K. had never eaten mulberry before.


Amazing how a tree, I thought had to be land based, could sprout, grow, thrive and produce the most delicious fruit on the base of a cypress tree and feed hydroponically.

We had a delightful time and moved into a thick grove of cypress to video a mother Yellow Crowned Night Heron standing guard over her young on the nest.



The Yellow Crowned Night Herons return to Lake Martin every year to nest in the thick groves of young cypress which grow in standing water all year long.

These birds nest in these trees because the water holds alligators and the gators protect the birds from the predators who can swim and climb trees such as the raccoon.




We were about 12 feet away from the nest and I was living up to my reputation of disturbing the nesting birds in the rookery and exploiting them for profit. At least that is what the staff at the new Nature Conservancy Visitor Center is telling my guests when they go there to use the restrooms. One of my guests visited the welcome center before doing my swamp tour, to use the restrooms there, and a staff member advised her that "the swamp tours" were killing the rookery.



Truth be told, I am really glad to see that the birds have returned in record numbers to the main rookery on the south side of the lake, since The Nature Conservancy stopped draining the lake and keeping the water below normal in what was the largest rookery of wading birds in North America in the 1990's.



Maybe The Nature Conservancy should hire a local who knows what they are talking about instead of some college educated, liar from New York to manage and oversee the Cypress Island Preserve at Lake Martin.

So, maybe the birds, if not The Nature Conservancy, appreciate my blogging last year about the correlation of lower water levels and a decreasing population of the nesting wading birds in the rookery here for the last ten years.




And then, last year after writing articles in my blog, for the first time in nearly a decade, they stopped draining the lake in September 2009, and low and behold... the wading birds returned to nest in record numbers.

Duuuhhh...It is common knowledge that the birds nest in trees that grow in standing water year round!

You see I have been a target of The Nature Conservancy for a decade and a half, for doing swamp tours into the rookery. I was in there before they acquired it! And in spite of my efforts to be a part of the neighborhood watch team to protect the nesting birds, the more I offered advise about my observations in there, I have to admit, I have always been treated as a inferior pest and intruder into the rookery.

The mission statement of The Nature Conservancy: The mission of the Nature Conservancy is to preserve the plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive.

You can visit their website by clicking the link above where they explain their success: We partner with indigenous communities, businesses, governments, multilateral institutions, other non-profits…and people such as yourself.

Why they would never work with me? Ohhh... I am a bad boy. OK.


Another thing I have to wonder about that mission statement in view of the management of the natural resources near the rookery is why do they mow down the flowers on Rookery Road at peak blooming?

And this isn't just about the flowers, we have a tractor mowing the roadside less than 50 feet away from where hundreds of wading birds are nesting and we had even more nesting there, a few years ago.



Say what? Ohhh... it looks better after it is mowed. Believe it or not, that's what she said!



I don't know about you, but I like to see flowers growing on the roadside in the spring.

I personally witnessed the present manager of The Cypress Island Preserve instructing the tractor driver to cut the weeds as close to the water as possible. Here is the tractor mowing the "grass and weeds" on the roadside near the new walkway constructed into the rookery. Ohh.. I wasn't supposed to say they were building a walkway into the rookery.

At least, that is what she asked me to do last year, was keep quiet about the construction of a walkway into the rookery where swamp tour boat access is restricted.



Hmmmm.... DOES SHE KNOW WHO SHE IS TALKING TO?

(My own mother can't control me..., good luck city girl.)

When I persisted, and asked again, why were they were building a walkway into the rookery? The Nature Conservancy staff manager advised me that the birds didn't nest where the walkway was being constructed.

Noooo... not since the lake was being drained every September, through the new drain gate installed on the Nature Conservancy property near the walkway causing that area to be dry land most of the time!



Oh wow! The tractor actually missed a few buttercups by the draingate.

At any rate this is what was growing on the roadside before the tractor came through at the peak of the springtime bloom this year.

Buttercups!


And native Louisiana Purple Iris


And native Louisiana Red Iris

And native Louisisna Blue Iris

And dew berry
And Spiderwort

It appears a few cypress trees planted by the Girl Scouts were mowed down too.

Oh well, we will keep planting them and hope some survive.

OK, I am finished picking on The Nature Conservancy, for now.

The Water Is Up And The Birds Are Back!

For nearly a decade, the water at Lake Martin was being intentionally drained and the water level lowered about 2-3 foot every year in September through a new spillway draingate on the southside near the Nature Conservancy Visitor Center.

Not only was there a drawdown of the water every autumn, the water was being kept below the normal high level it was in the late 1990's before the Nature Conservancy installed the draingate on their property and thus the power to control the water level effecting wildlife and everyone who attempted to use the recreational resources in the Lake Martin ecosystem.

This was being done with the belief and explaination that it benefited the birds in the rookery and the fish in the lake by improving water quality.

After writing articles in my swamp tour blog about the corelation between mismanagement of water resources(draining the lake) and the declining bird population, for the first time in September 2009 the lake was not drained as it had been for the last 7 or 8 years.

Historically, when the water was at it's highest levels in about the year 2000,
the nesting, wading bird population peaked.I know it is not the best photo, but taken from Rookery Road by a tourist friend of mine in 2000

Most estimates of the number of birds in the rookery were in my opinion, very unrealistically low.

I should know, I have been in the rookery doing swamp tours for over 20 years.A photo of me on tour in the rookery in 1998 by Brian Miller

Until about 10 years ago, it looked like snow covered trees during April and May.

Although there was poaching of birds and alligators, in the rookery, and duck hunting season overlapped the initial start up of the rookery every year, the birds multiplied, and the rookery expanded.

Until last year, I always believed the decline of the population of the nesting birds was due to a swamp tour guide(who I started in the business in May of 1999), who did night tours into the rookery area year round, with a big Q-beam light. He was not stopped from conducting these disturbing activities until March 2006 when the great "mysterious" disappearance of the nesting birds along Rookery Road occurred.

Last year I realized that the birds never started to leave
until the lake was being drained.

The true cause of the decline of the nesting bird population is still unknown and an issue of great speculation by many intelligent, concerned, and well-educated people.

As far as I am concerned the swamp tour guide is not off the hook.

The Bottom Line:
My hope and expectation is, as the rookery expands in population it will expand geographically as well. And once again the birds will occupy nests along Rookery Road allowing photographers, birdwatchers and nature lovers an up-close opportunity to experience what I have observed as a swamp tour guide for over 25 years.


For me, this how it all began...


More than 25 years ago




Before I ever built the houseboat and became a fulltime Louisiana Swamp Tour Guide, I was guiding personal friends of mine into the Atchafalaya basin swamp to put them into close proximity of nesting birds.

A Black Crowned Night Heron standing over her chicks on the nest.

What really amazed my friends was the fact that I could bring them 10-15 feet away from these birds and not disturb the birds normal behavior. Because I lived on a houseboat and worked as a commercial fisherman, I visited the birds everyday, and we developed a relationship of mutual trust and respect.


My houseboat at Grand Avoille Cove in the Atchafalaya Basin



Because of my guide skills and service to photography friends,
they suggested I become a full-time guide.

I told them they were crazy,
because no one would ever pay me to drive them into a swamp!

Little did I know they were looking into my future at the time.

I never planned, dreamed or imagined becoming a swamp tour guide, because back then, swamp tours were not even in existence in Louisiana.


A photo by Marc Garanger, a National Geographic photographer from France,
he took this photo of me in my old wooden skiff, over twenty years ago.



As I grew up hunting and fishing the marsh and swamps with my father, I was being groomed to be a swamp tour guide and never knew it at the time.

I took this with my cheapie pocket camera from the road overlooking the rookery north of Lake Martin, while guiding Larry this week.
A Rosette Spoonbill



An egret and heron roost at another rookery south of Lake Martin


My first butterfly of the season!

And the dragonflies are coming out too!

Because it was my photographer friends who inspired me to be a tour guide, I still love to do private photo safaris to remote locations for special people on occasion.



My friend Larry with a real wildlife camera,
focusing in on a rosette spoonbill engaged in nesting activities.



I took Larry and his wife to some private areas outside of Lake Martin this week to do a photo safari of nesting birds and to eat at The Boiling Point in New Iberia.


We had fried catfish, fried crawfish, and fried shrimp, and as an after thought, I ordered a half order of boiled crawfish too!

Maybe Larry can send me some of his photos for me to share with you here in an upcoming post.

In the meantime here are a couple of pictures sent to me by some other Lake Martin safari photographers recently.


A photographer named Al Guidry was on the road and took a photo of me as I was leaving the landing to start a Lake Martin Swamp Tour a few weeks ago and sent it to me as seen below.The aluminum crawfish skiff I built to replace the old wooden one as a commercial fisherman over twenty years ago is still my ultimate swamp tour boat today, because it allows me to get into the shallow, densely vegetated areas most boats cannot access, and that is where the most wildlife is likely to be found.

If you would like to contact Al to order prints,
or to hire him for photography services;
PORTFOLIO 2000 ACTION PORTRAITS
by AL GUIDRY of LAFAYETTE, LA
337 406-0927
email:portfolio2000foto@cox.net

The photos of the birds of Lake Martin,
are provided by Al Guidry for your viewing pleasure.












Another photographer, named Claude Nall, took a panoramic photo from his kayak on the north side of the lake, of these two huge Lake Martin alligators below.
This is the kind of photo opportunities you can have if you join me for a swamp tour or photo safari at Lake Martin or some of the other private locations I guide my friends to in My Wild Louisiana!



See you at the lake...Bobalou, my swamp tour guide dog for over 10 years.
Bob is a Louisiana Catahoula.