"...the ornithologists still had serious doubts. Sutton finally put it directly: 'Mr. Spencer, you're sure the bird you're telling us about isn't the big pileated woodpecker?'

"Spencer exploded. 'Man alive! These birds I'm tellin' you all about is kints!' he shouted in their faces. 'Why, the pileated woodpecker's just a little bird about as big as that.' He held his fingers a few inches apart. 'A kint's as big as that!' he said, holding his arms wide... 'Why, man, I've known kints all my life. My pappy showed 'em to me when I was just a kid. I see 'em every fall when I go deer huntin' down aroun' my place on the Tinsaw. They're big birds, I tell you, big and black and white; and they fly through the woods like pintail ducks!'

"After Spencer's outburst, the members of the team were all believers -- not just because of his vehemence, but because his description was so accurate. Ivory-bills do not have the typical bounding flight of the pileated woodpecker. They generally fly away high and straight, with stiff flight feathers, looking very much like a pintail, and their call is a distinctive nasal kent, kent, kent -- very similar to the local name Spencer used, kint. Sutton and the others couldn't wait to get to the bayou and start searching.

"As it turned out, that was not an easy proposition..." --Gallagher, Tim. The Grail Bird: Hot on the Trail of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, pp. 10-11: "Of People and Peckerwoods."

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Boneyard Lake: 5 October 2018

Brian and I drove down to the Pascagoula River Swamp to explore Boneyard Lake and its environs, a little-known-to-us corner of the WMA.  We'd heard of the lake before, as it has been a favored subject of local photographers, and is known as the site of a heron rookery.  We arrived a little after dawn, and quickly put our kayaks into the dark, still water, making a rough counter-clockwise arc through the baldcypress and tupelo along the lake's eastern half.
 

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.








 I noticed here and there "trails" through the still layer of algae on the lake's surface.


 A scattering of white feathers on the surfcae suggested to me an egret met its end here.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Here I believe I was probably stuck on a submerged log.  This happened to me several times and never failed to unnerve.  Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

We observed cormorants, wood ducks, red-bellied and pileated woodpeckers, crows, some kind of small hawk, several egrets, a lone tricolored heron, and a great blue heron.  The trees thin out towards the west side of the lake, though evidently that's where the rookery lies.
I was glad to be done with the kayaking, for although it was easy enough (submerged logs aside), I could not help but think the lake might be a haven for alligators.  "Boneyard Lake" sounds forbidding enough.

We drove on down the WMA road, following the line of the River to our west, twice stopping to explore on foot.  At the second trailhead we set off on a trail through some modest second-growth bottomland forest, which for a while took us through a long, narrow field.  Eventually the trail reached the River, and we followed it on southward to a nice sandbar, where we rested before turning back.  It was well before noon, and very warm and muggy, with little wind.



 Sycamore and water oak, growing together.  Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Brian nearly stepped on this piglet, which lay still among the leaf-litter beneath a tree at the end of the field.  It ambled off, and we later viewed a large family of hogs on more than one occasion.



 Always a welcome sight:  our friend, the Pascagoula River.

 Freshwater mussel track.

Though I was well pleased we were able to explore this place, I do not expect to return, unless it is to explore the bottomland well to the south of Boneyard.  The forest is patchy in places and less mature overall than what we have found elsewhere in the Basin, particularly in the Stronghold and the area around John Goff Slough, and of course the fastness of Big Swamp.  

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