Rainiest Winter In Over Forty Years

With two weeks left for this season, we are already experiencing the rainiest winter in decades and thank God for more water being trapped in Lake Martin this past autumn, instead of being drained. In order to restore the much needed opportunity for the birds to return to the largest rookery of wading birds in North America in the 1990's, the way they were when the water was at its highest point is very simple. Stop draining it!

Although there was a healthy, growing population of nesting birds in the rookery last year, we still have a long way to go to get to the point where we were in 2001 when the rookery population was peaking.



The wading bird nesting population peaked in coincidence with the highest water levels and declined in conjunction with plant control and lowered water levels.

Of course, I have to mention that human intrusion in the form of swamp tours and poaching is as far as I know, no longer a factor in the mystery of the true causes of the decline of the population of nesting birds.

Along with restoration of water levels, we need to seriously consider the lack of floating aquatic plants that serve as a feeding ground for the nesting wading birds and support the entire food chain in Lake Martin.

Floating mat of aquatic plants in about 5 feet of standing water

The irony here is that the plant control and lower water levels were proposed to improve water quality, and benefit the birds, fisherman, and hunters.

Apparently no one but me was asking the fisherman or duck hunters about management changes affecting their success at fishing and hunting or was observing the birds dismay with these management policies.

I have given up attempting to communicate with corporate or government administrators who sit behind a desk in Baton Rouge, fifty miles from the lake and make bold management decisions and effect changes based upon prideful assumptions that they are fixing the problems at the lake in regard to water and plant management.



My position is that the Lake Martin area should be managed as a swamp with a lake in the middle rather than a lake surrounded by swamp. And on that note a swamp and its interior lakes are supposed to be filled with a variety of seasonal floating plants.



Along with record precipitation, another extreme climate change we are experiencing this winter is the below normal temperatures which has frozen the lake(as seen beow) several times and temporarily killed off the majority of floating plants. This opens up a new window of observation and consideration of the normal natural cycle of checks and balances in nature that we sometimes fail to have the patience and understanding to accept: that nature will control itself if we simply do nothing!

Aquatic plants in two inches of ice

Mallow blossum frosted in ice crystals at waters edge

Bermuda swamp grass frosted on shore

When I first started doing my Louisiana swamp tours twenty-five years ago, I was aware that most people had vague imaginations about swamps or gross inaccuracies as to what a swamp was or how it functioned ecologically in the big picture of the quality of life for its inhabitants, and the surrounding environs, due to Hollywood generated images being most peoples source of perspective for swamps.

I was unaware that the so-called experts were not much better informed about swamps than was the public at large. My view of the experts in the field of wetlands ecology of course has changed after observing the disturbing mismanagement of the water and plants in Lake Martin.

We have for centuries been led to believe that swamps were funky, dirty, dangerous, undesirable and useless real estate unless drained or filled in to improve it.

The reality is that swamps are great purifiers of water and air and are extremely important for a wide variety of species who increasingly struggle to find a place to live and reproduce in peace and thus survive the damage we are doing and have done to this planet and it's wild inhabitants in the last two hundred years.



I am not against progress, but the destruction and genocide of the indigenous people and wildlife species on this continent in the last two hundred years for short term financial gain is unethical and immoral not to mention completely unacceptable in my eyes.

Good News for the Birds of Lake Martin

Many good things are happening at Lake Martin lately which is a turn around from the tragic events of the past few years.



1. The Nature Conservancy is constructing long needed and much awaited public restrooms at their new visitor center on the south side of the lake near the rookery.

2. The water levels appear to be back to normal due to a management policy change which stopped the autumn drainage, and as of this winter, being the rainiest in decades.

3. The nesting bird population appears to be on the rise,
in direct relation to water levels.

4. Abundant rain has of course improved water quality.

I did a couple of my Louisiana swamp tours in the middle of September last year and then immediately drove down to the drain gate on the south side used for the last 8 years to drain the swamp. I went there to inspect the drain gate and was pleasantly surprised to see several additions to the 6" control structure panels, allowing more water to be trapped and thus raise the water levels.





What I expected to find was the 6" panels being removed and the plug being pulled to drain the lake and lower the water as usual for that time of year.

Instead, based on what I found, my prayers had been answered.

A de la Houssaye Swamp Tour

Hopefully the Wildlife and Fisheries and Nature Conservancy are realizing that the drainage of the water and thus lower water levels are possible causes of the departure of the nesting birds from the rookery in the Lake Martin Cypress Island Preserve.

What I expected to see that time of year was drainage, leading to lower water levels during the fall and winter and not what I found, and that is good. The photo below shows the drain gate installed in 2001. I don't like this photo because it looks like a solid metal top. Actually the top is constructed of an iron grate which allows water to drain into the top and also allows visual acessment of the operation of the drain.



A view from the top

Below is an image of me standing on top of the drain last summer, and gives a more accurate perspective of the drain size.




This past year, instead of pulling out panels and allowing the water levels to go down a couple of feet, someone had added a couple of the 6" panels to the top of the control structure and that caused the water levels in Lake Martin to rise.

For eight or nine years now, The Nature Conservancy and Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries have been conducting an experiment designed to improve the water quality in the swamp and at the lake by lowering the water levels in the fall every year. They then promised to pump the water back in and restore the water level before the birds begin to nest in the spring. But wait... I see Great Blue Herons staging nesting sites in the middle of January before the pumps were even turned on! They have by my observations, failed to give back to the lake the water that they took away the season before.

As you can see in the photo below, they did turn on the pump on the north side of the lake in February 2009 and helped raise the water level a little.




But they failed to return the water to an acceptable level equal to what it was before they lowered it. And not enough to flood the grove of trees where the Great Blue Herons nested before the water was being lowered. As seen in the photos below.

The area along Rookery Road where the Great Blue Herons nested before the swamp was being drained


It is common knowledge that these wading birds nest in trees that grow in water year round because the water holds alligators and alligators protect the birds from predators that can swim and climb trees. These same predators will not swim in water with alligators because they will not survive if they do.

Below is a photo I took of the water line on a tree last summer, proving that the water is not being pumped or even allowed to rise nautally to the levels it was before the Nature Conservancy stated monkeying around with water levels



The Nature Conservancy claimed that it was OK to drain the lake and lower the water in the autumn season because it did not conflict or interfere with the nesting season in the spring. I disagree on that position because it is my belief that if it is not safe for birds to roost there all year long, the birds will not nest there in the spring.

Furthermore, the nesting season does not start in the spring, but at the beginning of winter when the Great Blue Herons and Great Egrets arrive in the second and third weeks of January and begin selecting nesting locations in the tops of tall cypress trees as seen in the photos below.

A Great Blue Heron rookery on the tops of trees near Lake Martin in an area where it is flooded year round in spite of the annual drainage


Below is a photo of a large number and variety of nesting wading birds in an area where water is present year round.



Along with the drainage of the water to lower the water levels on this thousand acre wilderness area, I also have issues with the application of herbicides and the killing off of hundreds of acres of button bush and the floating mats of plants on three sides of Lake Martin as seen below in the photo which I took while on a swamp tour in April 2009.

Agent Orange herbicide damage to the floating mat of plants in Lake Martin


I am not only here at Lake Martin to share the visual natural beauty of our state with our visiting guests, I also have an obligation to protect the defenseless inhabitants of my wild Louisiana and at the same time educate the local public at large regarding the dangers of using 2-4-d, (a.k.a. Agent Orange) in our wilderness areas such as Lake Martin.

A Lake Martin Swamp Tour

The Birds of Lake Martin, La

White Ibis feeding on the floating mat of plants in Lake Martin


As a swamp tour guide in the rookery at Lake Martin for over 20 years, my observations of the bird population and it's gradual modifications, gives me an opportunity to present an explanation of an unsolved mystery.

I have witnessed sometime very subtle or dramatic adjustments in nesting patterns in relation to climate fluctuations, as well as government, conservation groups, local residents, and my own as well as other swamp tour operator activities.

A sunset on a Lake Martin Swamp Tour

I have been in the rookery for over 20 years, day and night as a tour guide, with a focus on the birds, alligators and plant life as well as the overall ecology and natural beauty. I know what the birds will and will not tolerate during the nesting season. With that knowledge, I have operated as close as possible without causing a disturbance of nesting activities.



The mysterious disappearance of the birds at Lake Martin in March of 2006 is no great mystery to me. I have been watching a gradual decline in the population of wading birds for nearly eight years since the water was first being lowered or drained from the lake and nesting area beginning in 2001. (Click the link above to read the article I wrote in another blog in February of 2009)

Not only has the water been lowered every year in the autumn season, by pulling the drain plug, it has been kept below normal year round(by about 18", compared to where it was at its highest in 2001) and rainfall has allowed to escape all year long as seen below.



It appears to me that when the water was allowed to rise to it's highest levels(between 1996-2001), the bird population rose to it's highest levels. It is common knowledge that these birds nest in trees which grow in standing water year round.

The decline is coincidental with two or maybe three other significant factors making it difficult to pinpoint any one source as the cause of the decline of the bird population.

1. The presence of poachers taking birds at night.

2. The application of herbicides to control(or completely destroy and eliminate) the floating mats of native indegenous plants by The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries in the rookery and feeding areas around the lake, which supports the food chain leading up to the nesting birds in the rookery.

3. A swamp tour guide doing night tours in the rookery between 2000 and 2006.

I began doing swamp tours at Lake Martin full time, in 1996, having wet my feet as a tour guide in the Atchafalaya Basin for over ten years prior to that. In the Atchafalaya Basin, I noticed two things that I did, which would disrupt or displace birds nesting activities.

1. Approaching a bird nesting site when the nest was under construction prior to laying eggs. Through trail and error, I learned that if I passed close to a new nest, when it was under construction in the spring, the bird would often abandon that site and start another nest elsewhere. Because these nests were not there the last time I passed a few days before, these disturbances were accidental and thus often unavoidable. If I noticed the new nest under construction as I approached from a distance, and gave the bird some space and time, thus allowing it to construct the nest, lay eggs, and get settled in, I could later pass very close to the nest and not cause a disturbance.


2. Accidentally entering a new area containing a roost or nesting area at night with a big light such as a Q-beam.

I decided to use Lake Martin as my primary tour site location in 1996, because it was clean, quiet, easily accessible to tourists from Interstate 10, and had a relatively stable water level year round. But the most prominent benefit of doing tours at Lake Martin was the amazing variety and abundance of wildlife. For about the first year, I wondered why was this swamp so wildlife intensive compared to everywhere else. After plant control arrived at Lake Martin and destroyed the floating mat of plants, I realized the benefits of floating mats of plants in swamp ecology and thus the abundance of wildlife in conjunction with plants.

It was then, and still is by far, the most reliable year round, wildlife intensive tour area I have ever visited. But, when I first started doing tours there full time in 1996, there was no plant control, or water management(annual drainage) and the only time the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries went there, was to enforce laws.

As soon as plant control arrived at Lake Martin, I understood why plant control was so destructive to the overall ecology and why there was so much wildlife prior to plant control destroying the food chain there.

At that time, I did not consider that the high water levels could be a primary cause of the population growth of the nesting wading birds in the Lake Martin rookery.

A drought caused a fish kill in 1996 and 1997. Instead of recognizing the drought as the cause of the fish kill, the Wildlife and Fisheries biologists blamed the fish kill on too many plants in the lake.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Division of Plant Research and Control first came in May of 1997 with a crop duster airplane and applied a granular herbicide to the lake area. That first wave of plant control killed all of the submerged plants(hydrilla, coontail, and aquatic bladderwort)in the lake which resulted in a total fish kill and there were no indigenous fish in the lake for 4 years after that. Except for the Chinese Carp introduced and used for plant control.

Plant control then began to apply 2-4-D (also known as agent orange in an other place and time)to destroy the floating mats of plants on the north, east, and west sides of the lake. This is a critical component of the ecology that supports the food chain that leads to and feeds the wading birds and every vertebrate and invertebrate in between the plants and the alligators.

The next manipulation of the ecology came when biological studies by Federal Wetlands Center biologists proposed that lowering the water levels might improve water quality. This proposition was based upon an assumption or "guess" that poor water quality might be the cause of the population decrease.

These biologists who spent a few days a month on the lake studying the water quality problems and taking water samples during the drought period, made a proposal that we should begin to annually lower and manipulate water levels in an effort to "improve" water quality. Unfortunately their research was conducted primarily during the drought period and not continued during normal rainfall activities, when rain could recharge the oxygen supply and allow fish to live in a lake with an abundance of plants. Through all this, the Lake Martin Advisory Committee(a group of local water front residents) hoped to protect the ecology and planned to maintain or "keep things as is".

The problem with that plan is, that the lake, it's natural inhabitants and the ecology changes naturally from year to year due to climate variables. During drought years when the water levels are lowered naturally, it is very different than in flood years. And, in a hard winter season it freezes the surface of the lake and swamp killing most of the surface vegetation. This climate change which is infrequent, but normal, once again allows the natural dying off of certain plant species to generate an opportunity for the proliferation of new species to dominate the water/landscape in the growing season of the following year.

To this effect I have witnessed salvinia(a.k.a. greater duckweed) as the primary floating plant in the late 80's be replaced by lesser duck weed in the 90's and then back to salvinia in the 21st century. Also for a brief time in 2000 through 2002, water hyacinth dominated as the floating plant mat. As a result of plant control herbicides destroying the indigenous plants(such as aquartic waterwort, frogbit, and dollar bonnet) that formed a mat of plants preventing the movement of water hyacinth, the water hyacinth(a non-native) was able to drift and take over or dominate as the primary surface plants in the lake. In my opinion, in essence we had no plant control problems until governmental plant control arrived and started trying to fix something which was not broken.

Plant control activities which included herbicide application and lowering the water levels are in my opinion the primary reason the birds began to mysteriously disappear from Lake Martin.

Because living plants on the surface and below the water absorb nutrients, they are effective water filters, balancing the chemical exchanges of dead, decaying plants feeding living plants. If it weren't for living plants and bacteria devouring nutrients released into the water by dead decaying plants, the water would have a nutrient overload, or in lay mans terms be a cesspool. Because man has altered the hydrodynamics of swamps, bayous and rivers, in the name of human progress, swamps are often regarded as unclean due to an interruption of natural processes. For this reason, man then attempts to control or minimize plant mass by killing off a portion of the plants in the ecosystem. Unfortunately that attempt is usually government overkill in my opinion.

When left alone, to evolve naturally, swamps can and will within themselves control biological shifts in plant composition and climate changes that are natural mechanisms which are cyclical and balanced.

Although the water was not lowered by drainage in September 2009 for the first time in nearly a decade, we still must face the specter of government plant control applying excessive amounts of herbicide and trying to turn the swamp around Lake Martin into a lake with trees in this coming growing season in 2010.