"...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."

Saturday, August 9, 2014

Scouting Expedition: Hutson Lake, Pascagoula WMA, 7 August 2014 (Part 2 of 2)

After an inordinate amount of time spent gawking at Old Man Cypress, we continued on past Hutson Lake, bound for the east bank of the Pascagoula.  It seemed like a good idea, at the time; and the presence of a couple of shirtless, shoeless guys fishing made us eager to be gone.  They had canoed in to the lake from somewhere to the south.

Before leaving the lake, we passed this tree, not too long dead, with some impressive scaling.  There are numerous chisel-like marks upon the sapwood on this one, as can be seen in this photo:


The scaling went up the bole of the tree for several feet. 

 Extreme southwestern end of the oxbow.



We made our way slowly for the better part of an hour through some very difficult terrain, before coming out on the (wrong) side of the River.

On the "cut" overlooking the Pascagoula.  We almost always seem to come out on the damned cut, where the descent to the water is near impossible, as well as impractical. 

Nice sandbar.  Over there.

We followed the riverbank northward, as best we could, hoping to get to the inviting sandbar that showed up on Brian's Google Earth map.

 Typical terrain along this part of the River.  This is what separates the Men from the Boys.  Or the serious from the casual birders.  Or the idiots from the rest of y'all.

 Wildflowers.  Don't know what kind.  They were between us and our sandbar, so I was not as appreciative as I should have been.


 We have not yet identified them.




Maple and sycamore comprised much of the forest near the riverbank.

Near the sandbar, a grove of black willow. 

At last.

The sandbar was, of course, mercifully clear of the wild tangle we'd been working through.  But we may as well have stepped onto the surface of Mercury.  The noonday sun blasted the white sand and reddish clay.  Warm winds off the River and barely cool water provided little solace.  However, a duel on the opposite bank between a snowy egret and a juvenile tricolored heron offered a distraction from the oppressive heat; the heron withdrew to our side, and  proceeded to give us some of our best birding photos of the year.







The heron finally grew tired of us, and flapped off.  We washed the grime off our arms and faces, and Brian tested his new hiker's water filtration device.  But the heat and glare proved unbearable; and we had been hiking for six hours.  I was feeling very weak, and slightly dizzy, and there were small purplish swirls in my field of vision.  We both felt we should find shade, and quickly, so we made for the willow grove.  Our goal was to cut northeastward, across country again, hoping that our route would bypass Hutson Lake and take us back near the trailhead, to the truck, and to air conditioning.

In the grove I felt I could go no further.  My heart was racing, and I knew I was in very dangerous condition. We stopped, and I laid down my backpack and walking stick, and stretched out on the ground in the shade.

Several Mississippi kites were present over this part of the River, and at times I saw one wheeling about above the willows:

 Perhaps you can see him, near the middle of the photo.  I thought, "I can think of worse things to look upon with my last sight," and said as much to my brother.  We both laughed, maybe a little too hard.

After a few minutes rest, I attempted to go forth again; but we had not gotten far before the weakness returned, and I had to lay down upon the forest floor.  This time, I lay there recovering a long time, maybe a half hour.  Finally, I felt genuinely better, and was able to go forward at a decent pace once more.  I guess it could have been worse.  It could have been raining.

A huge red oak.



It started raining a few hundred yards from the River, in full sunlight.  I don't know what folks in other parts of the country say when this happens, but down here they say that the Devil is beating his wife.  For some reason, this Infernal spousal abuse is referred to with a kind of endearment, and for some reason equally inexplicable to me, I find it endearing as well.

Domestic disturbances in Hell notwithstanding, the rain stopped after a few minutes, leaving the forest loudly dripping, and more humid than ever.  But we soon found another old logging road, one that led fairly due North.

We had not gone far, before we saw him, meditating in a bottom off to our left:  the Ancient of Days.


There was no question as to whether or not we should investigate.




 His mighty knees.




The Ancient of Days is approximately 34 feet in circumference, making him over eleven feet wide.  My conservative estimate of his age is -- I still have difficulty grasping this -- over 500 years old.

"Monumental agedness."  That is how one writer described an old cypress in this same area.  I do not know if it was this one he wrote about.  But it fits the Ancient of Days perfectly.  What creatures, now long vanished from the Earth, sought refuge among his branches?  What terrific storms, born off the coast of Africa, ravaged the lands round about his knees, down through the centuries?  How many generations of humans have passed him by, going about their timeless human errands in his titanic shadow?

I did not want to leave him.  But my strength is not his strength.  So, at length, we turned our backs to the Ancient, and took our leave of him, for now.

There was still quite a long way to go before we got back to Brian's truck; and the exhaustion set upon me yet again, not two hundred yards from it.  But we made it, my brother and I.

We made it.  And then we went to Angel's Quik-Stop for chicken fingers and a half gallon of Dr. Peppah.

Conclusions:  No kents, no double-knocks.  A lot of bark peeling, most of it undoubtedly the work of mammals.  But those and other signs gave me hope; and most of all, the magnificence of the habitat itself.  I do hope there are Ivory-billed Woodpeckers here.  Without them, it would seem just a smidge sad.

I have never walked among such impressive trees before.  

You know, it is a curious thing:  for all the negativity one hears about Mississippi (a good chunk of it well-placed), I am glad that I am here.  I love this land, with its heat and its hogs and its snakes and its jungle spiders. There are such gems here, such richness of life, that one may feel humbled, as a child in a museum; only, this museum welcomes the child, tests it, and in making the child feel that it is Home, makes it feel loved.

(Photo:  Brian W. Carlisle)

Friday, August 8, 2014

Scouting Expedition: Hutson Lake, Pascagoula WMA, 7 August 2014 (Part 1 of 2)

IBWOH's:  Brian W. Carlisle, Christopher Carlisle

Summary:  A hike that, over six hours, circumnavigated Hutson Lake, an oxbow off the east bank of the Pascagoula River, in the Pascagoula Wildlife Management Area.  The area is almost wholly forested, predominately by cypress and tupelo swamp forest, and stands of mature bottomland hardwoods. Here and there are relict cypress, and other remnants of the vast primeval Southern forest.  Much of the area floods in the winter and spring months during the River's annual cycle.  It was very hot and humid, which took a toll; I believe I may have suffered from heat exhaustion, forcing me to lay upon the ground several times to recover.  The heat proved to be the greatest danger of the day; but wild hogs ran a close second.  We encountered several, and heard more; and we may have been followed by one at one point, snorting at us from a hidden vantage in the thickets.  Other wildlife was fairly abundant here, and I recorded three new bird species for the year:  Kentucky warbler, tricolored heron, and an Anhinga.  We saw no alligators, and only one snake, a black racer.  It was probably too damned hot even for snakes.  Other mammals we encountered were white-tailed deer, raccoons, and a rabbit.

We found what I believe to be old scaling upon several trees, as well as some very recent work on some others.  The latter may have been due to either rubbing by wild hogs, or girdling by beavers, or even the work of black bear (I have heard convincing arguments for all three).  I am not sure, but they are all strong possibilities and cannot easily be dismissed.


We started near the MS Highway 26 bridge, which crosses the Pascagoula east of Benndale.  The area is criscrossed by old logging roads that are knee-deep or higher in grass and weeds this time of year, and are often blocked by large downed trees.  We probably used those roads for over half of our hike.  The roads were not always the easiest route to take in this area.

Male (left) and female banana spiders.

Banana spiders were everywhere.  While nonpoisonous (though I have read that their bites are painful), these large arachnids are pretty wicked-looking and contribute greatly to one's sense of unease, especially when one gets a web full in the face.  Often we had to duck under their webs, which span the old logging roads at eye level and higher.  In South America, they are the largest non-tarantula spider.

Close to the trailhead, around 6 a.m.

Near the trailhead, I spotted a group of mature (though not large) trees within a grove that bore strange markings within 4-5' of their bases.  At least three trees had had the bark peeled off in slabs.  At least one of the trees, the one I got the most pictures of, was a sweet gum.  One of the others I could not identify, though all are hardwoods.  I decided to post all the photographs I took of them in that area, even though a couple are of poor quality.  I wedged the blade of my knife between the sapwood and the cambium layer  to show the tightness of the bark.  All of the trees are still very much alive, despite their wounds.  The grove was within a finger of woodland that bordered an old field, and was probably a hundred yards or more from water.


I became, admittedly, a bit giddy.  (Photo:  Brian Carlisle.)


"Skink Has a Bad Day."  He is thoroughly encased in sap. 






I wedged the blade of my knife between the bark and the sapwood.  It was very tight.  



The upper bole of the sweet gum. 



Tree 2.  I could not identify the species.  Here the bark is not completely peeled all the way around, only mostly so. 


Upper bole of Tree 2. 

Tree 3.  Here the vines and other plants grow up against the tree, near the bark peeling.  I believe the lack of disturbance to the vines may preclude the bark being peeled off by a feral hog, which would surely have left the vines in disarray.

Tree 4. 

Tree 5. 


We continued on, past an old field and a number of wooded sloughs afterward.  


Interestingly, this forest counts among its members not a few very tall live oaks.  This natural cavity was in one of them.

 Old scaling on a sweet gum.


Scaling at the base of a spruce pine, near a slough.  I believe that this could be the work of feral pigs.


 Peeling on yet another live tree, species unknown to me.



 Swamp chestnut oak, a very common species in the area.

Hog Wuz Here.  No, really.  A wild hog was watching us from this opening, and darted off before I could get a photo.

Old cavity in a dead pine.  The most common pines here were spruce pines; longleaf and other upland pine species are uncommon.


 Girdling.  Beaver-work.  

 A nice red oak, only a little above average size for the many varieties of oak here.

 Here we leave the trail for a real woods-walk, making for the River.


 Healed scaling on a sweet gum.

 Damage to another spruce pine.

I think this was likely done by a beaver.

Yeah.  Not a woodpecker.


 Red-headed woodpeckers were common here, and we heard pileateds, red-bellieds, and downies as well.  They seem to like this snag.

 Coming out of the woods near the southwestern end of Hutson Lake, we encountered Old Man Cypress, holding timeless court among his underlings.



Yep.  Hollow, all the way down...

... and up.

 Of course, we could not resist.  Can you blame us?



 The Old Man measures over 22 feet in circumference, making him over seven feet wide. 

I conservatively estimate his age to be over 350 years. 

A nearby snag showed some old scaling.

 Brian attempts to photograph an anhinga, which is perched atop a cypress across the lake.





Here I must pause, and will shortly resume and complete this report.