IBWOH: Chris Carlisle.
Summary: I parked IBWO-1 at the trailhead near the General Jackson Interpretive Trail and began my hike at 7 a.m., not long after sunrise. (Andrew Jackson apparently led his army through this area on his march to New Orleans in 1814.) A clear dawn rapidly gave way to haze. Temperatures were mild, though it was very muggy in the forest. Over the next four hours, I hiked the Black Creek Wilderness Trail as it wound its way first upstream along Beaverdam Creek, then (crossing the creek via the Highway 29 bridge) downstream to where Beaverdam Creek joins Black Creek; then, a little farther on, to a small oxbow lake just south of Black Creek, in the bottoms between the creek and the piney ridges. I began the hike back at 11:15, and arrived back at the trailhead at 1:20. Much of the trail (now largely cleared, thanks to work crews) there winds through pine uplands, but there are many opportunities to explore the bottoms in and around both Beaverdam Creek and Black Creek, and I availed myself of several.
The forest was very still. Biting insects were largely absent, and I did not have to use any repellent. Bird life seemed a bit muted, even the blue jays. I heard several pileated woodpeckers and flickers, and saw and heard red-bellied woodpeckers. There were many thrushes in the woods, both wood thrush and hermit thrush -- likely migrants. Small flycatchers were common, as were Carolina wrens and tufted titmice. I saw one catbird. The tanagers are gone. Turkeys were vocal, and I flushed one from thick brush among the pines.
My focus was a search for sign: scaling, of a type that could be consistent with that of ivorybills. I did not find any. There was, moreover, a dearth of scaling in general, save for on the many hurricane-killed pines, with one glaring exception. I also found very few woodpecker cavities, which I found odd, considering the abundance of standing dead timber.
Summary: I parked IBWO-1 at the trailhead near the General Jackson Interpretive Trail and began my hike at 7 a.m., not long after sunrise. (Andrew Jackson apparently led his army through this area on his march to New Orleans in 1814.) A clear dawn rapidly gave way to haze. Temperatures were mild, though it was very muggy in the forest. Over the next four hours, I hiked the Black Creek Wilderness Trail as it wound its way first upstream along Beaverdam Creek, then (crossing the creek via the Highway 29 bridge) downstream to where Beaverdam Creek joins Black Creek; then, a little farther on, to a small oxbow lake just south of Black Creek, in the bottoms between the creek and the piney ridges. I began the hike back at 11:15, and arrived back at the trailhead at 1:20. Much of the trail (now largely cleared, thanks to work crews) there winds through pine uplands, but there are many opportunities to explore the bottoms in and around both Beaverdam Creek and Black Creek, and I availed myself of several.
The forest was very still. Biting insects were largely absent, and I did not have to use any repellent. Bird life seemed a bit muted, even the blue jays. I heard several pileated woodpeckers and flickers, and saw and heard red-bellied woodpeckers. There were many thrushes in the woods, both wood thrush and hermit thrush -- likely migrants. Small flycatchers were common, as were Carolina wrens and tufted titmice. I saw one catbird. The tanagers are gone. Turkeys were vocal, and I flushed one from thick brush among the pines.
My focus was a search for sign: scaling, of a type that could be consistent with that of ivorybills. I did not find any. There was, moreover, a dearth of scaling in general, save for on the many hurricane-killed pines, with one glaring exception. I also found very few woodpecker cavities, which I found odd, considering the abundance of standing dead timber.
Typical scene at trailside.
Living loblolly pine showing extensive scaling and excavation.
The bark on the affected side is loose and easily sloughed off. The bark on the opposite side is tight.
I suspect Pileated and Red-bellied Woodpeckers.
Beaverdam Creek, from a high bluff on the west bank.
A shallow stretch of Beaverdam Creek.
Herroh.
Magnolia overlooking Black Creek.
I liked its shape and way of growth.
Loblolly pines and white oaks crowd the bluffs and ridges overlooking Black Creek.
Small oxbow.
Typical pine snag along the trail.
I discovered a hidden trail that leads to the confluence of Beaverdam Creek (foreground) and Black Creek.
On the return hike, I decided to attempt some cross-country orienteering, using my compass:
Luckily, it worked.
Conclusions: A very enjoyable hike, tinged however with frustration and disappointment at not finding any sign of IBWO's. While it is not "all about the IBWO," and the area is more than worthy of future hikes, I do not plan to return any time soon, at least not to that area of Black Creek Wilderness (I may return to the eastern edge later, if time permits). If Campephilus principalis does indeed inhabit the Wilderness, it is likely only a pair, or maybe a lone individual. And while, as contributor Fangsheath at the Ivory-bill Researchers Forum has (importantly) noted, "...the absence of such evidence should not be taken as absence of the ivory-bill" (referring to feeding sign), hunting for ivorybills in country where one can find no evidence, however promising the habitat, almost feels worse than fruitless.
My companions and I have explored some of the most promising tracts on the periphery of the Pascagoula basin, and at points further in. We have found no scaling or cavities that suggest the presence of ivorybills anywhere, save within the more immediate swamp forests of the Pascagoula and lower Leaf rivers; and only within the Pascagoula River Swamp lie bottomland forests that seem (to my mind) extensive enough to support one or more pairs of Ivorybills.
My fiancee Susanne has said more than once that I should focus my efforts on the Pascagoula. Having ruled out the peripheral locales, I can no longer argue. All roads in my search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in south Mississippi now lead to the Pascagoula River Swamp.
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