The Last Quarter Of 2010

For the first time in almost 10 years, The Nature Conservancy did not pull the drain plug and lower the water in the rookery in September of 2009.

As a result, we started 2010 with higher water than I have seen in over ten years and almost as many birds nesting as we had 7 or 8 years ago..





Last year was a good year for the birds at Lake Martin.



And that being said;





I expected to publish this report in the middle of January when I first sighted a Great Egret building a nest, but that did not happen this year.



Perhaps the cause of delayed nesting this year is due to the severe freezes we had last year, and that combined with another intensely cold winter this year.

All of the above photos are copyrighted and courtesy of Claude Nall

And all things considered, 2010 has been a great year for the birds at Lake Martin.

The rainiest winter in 40 years and extremely cold,



made for high water and natural plant control in the winter of 2010.



Natural plant control? Who ever heard of that? Am I the only one who believes nature can control itself without our arrogant chemical activities?

Then in the spring of 2010, 2 natural surges seemed to coincide,



along with higher water levels, we are seeing more wading birds nesting in the rookery.




Now, on that note, because of higher water levels, a dramatic increase in the population of nesting birds, and very little plant control, I have been very quiet politically and taken a position of observation.


Wood Duck photo courtesy of Claude Nall


I want to wait and see where this goes. At this point, we have made progress toward protecting plants, the ecology, and water resources, and this is good. I certainly don't want to come off as a ranting and raving, constant discontent. I am very much delighted with the changes in plant and water management policies at Lake Martin. Compared to where we were for over a decade, 2010 was a great year for the birds.


Hawk photo courtesy of Claude Nall


Hopefully, we will in the near future have birds nesting in the cypress and tupelo trees along Rookery Road like they did until March 2006.





In the photo below taken in September 2010, you can see the intense heat of summer and below normal rainfall resulted in water levels were about 18 inches below where the water was in the winter time. This is a "natural" draw-down of the lake and swamp water levels.





In my opinion, the water in Lake Martin should be allowed to rise and hold as much as possible in the winter, at the beginning of the nesting season if we are to manage it the way it was being managed when the nesting bird population peaked.




A simple formula of trees growing in standing water year round is required for the birds to nest. The irony is that higher water levels benefit not only the birds, but everyone else who uses Lake Martin, including fishermen, hunters, birdwatchers, photographers, and swamp tour participants.





The only negative element in 2010 for me to report came at the end of summer,



in the last week of September when plant control came along the road and sprayed plants from the road.





Then a few days later, plant control came by boat and sprayed the rookery where I do my swamp tours.





With the blessings of the Nature Conservancy, the state is applying herbicide in the rookery and killing button bush and Cypress trees which are used by nesting birds. Worse than that is to completely destroy the floating mats of plants on three sides of the lake that supplies the food which feeds the nesting birds in the rookery on the south side.





The east, west, and north sides of Lake Martin were 15 years ago, some of the most wildlife intensive swamp I had ever visited because they were covered with thick floating mats of plants. The floating mats are gone, and so is the wildlife. In my opinion, it is now an aquatic desert, by comparison to what it was a decade and a half ago.





Now bear in mind these photos above were shot in the last weeks of September 2010(including the one below), when everything is lush, dense and green, except where plant control destroyed the natural beauty.






So...here we are half way through the first quarter of 2011 and...






The Great Blue Herons are right on schedule and we have to assume any day now,

photo courtesy of Claude Nall

the egrets will start feeling the natural urge to nest too.



In the meantime, as you can see in the photos above and below, the Great Blues are busy with reproduction activities.



I will assume the unusually cold weather has delayed the egrets.

Louisiana Swamp Tours: How Did This Happen?

Louisiana Swamp Tours: How Did This Happen?

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.