"...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."

Friday, December 9, 2016

The Old Ones of Black Swamp and Big Swamp, 27 November 2016

My brother Brian and I headed back to the Pascagoula River Basin to explore the habitat of south-central Big Swamp.  I was encouraged on my last trip to Big Swamp by the magnificence of the bottomland hardwood and swamp forest I found in the east-central part of the Swamp; and I imagined that the prolonged drought afflicting our area would leave many of the creeks and sloughs veining the Swamp high and dry, affording access where water was normally a barrier.

Dawn came clear and cold -- 28 degrees (Fahrenheit) -- as we turned onto the WMA road to Thieves' Landing on Black Creek.  The road ambles alongside a narrow arm of Black Swamp, which sheathes Black Creek for miles before the creek meets its destiny, the Pascagoula River.  To our delight, we saw that the normally flooded Black Swamp was indeed dry, its bed a rust-colored carpet of baldcypress needles through which the grey cypress knees jutted like innumerable little headstones.  We knew that a grandfather cypress lurked not too off in there; so Brian parked just off the road, we pulled on our boots, and plunged into Black Swamp.

We found the grandfather soon enough, a mighty relict baldcypress, hollow like all the others we have encountered in the Basin.  To our great surprise, we found three others of similar size in close proximity, and the bones of a fourth, in his ruin still holding court in his corner of Black Swamp.  Seldom do we find so many of these Old Ones in such close proximity.  I considered it a good omen.

We later decided that an animal was probably responsible for the debris inside the tree, as the cavity is a bit too small for an adult human to squeeze through.

 The remnant.  Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.



 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.





Photo:  Brian Carlisle.



 Woodpecker work, taking advantage of natural cavities.





Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 There are numerous woodpecker cavities in this hollow one.



I really never get tired of encounters with these giants.  Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.


 Black Creek, as seen from the high ridge dividing it from Black Swamp.  Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Part of Black Swamp, as seen from Thieves' Landing.  Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Hauling out the Kuhn.  Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Black Creek.   Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 A few minutes later, when we were getting back into Brian's truck, I realized I had left my paddles in my truck, at Brian's house.  So much for the good omen.  We ended up splitting Brian's set up, and managed to scoot across Black Creek using 1 paddle each with little trouble.  Stowing the kayaks on the east bank, we set off on the smallish trail cutting eastward, making for Big Swamp Road, an ATV route that runs north-south and is maintained by the WMA people.  We planned on bearing south along the road, which would take us through country we had not seen before.

Bird life was muted as we walked along at a good clip.  The most active birds seemed to be pileated woodpeckers.  Leaves are still falling here, and Big Swamp was truly noisy with their clatter, as well as the noise of what looks to be a bumper crop of squirrels, making a racket like deer as they zip along the forest floor.  The deer were moving about, but the resident hogs made no appearance for the duration of our time there.  Dogs bayed in the distance.  The great spiders are dead or dying, some still hanging lifeless in their rent and ruined webs, twisting in the breeze.

Though I am familiar with the area, the drought-stricken Swamp caused me some confusion, as creeks and sloughs that normally both give definition and limit movement were nearly unrecognizable in places.  The east-west trail is seldom used, and we were often hard pressed to find it, until we found ourselves wandering a bit aimlessly in the autumn woods, with only the rising Sun to guide us.  Eventually we came upon a trail bordering what looked to be a nearly dry lake.  Bewildered, I remarked that I had never been there; but Brian jogged my memory, and I realized that we had reached German Slough, which is normally impassable much of the year and imposes a non-negotiable wet feet penalty for its crossing.

The morning warmed quickly as we came upon the north-south Big Swamp Road.  Standing there leaning on our walking-staves, we heard the growl of a small engine from the north, and the clang of metal.  Presently a hunter on a four-wheeler approached, pulling a rather rickety homemade kennel on a trailer.  We waved as he turned west towards German Slough, and the clanging faded into the Swamp's natural white noise.  Incredibly, he was the only hunter we'd encountered to that point in our hike -- though it was a Sunday morning, it was still Thanksgiving weekend, a time when the woods of south Mississippi are simply stiff with orange-clad hunters, their trucks, and their dogs.

I saw as we walked south that the WMA personnel had cleared the encroaching vegetation a bit from either side of the road.  Fine old bottomland hardwood forest lay on either side; water oak dominates, with sweet gum somewhat less of a presence than in the Stronghold to the north.  Now and again a dry slough could be seen through the trees, the grey-white trunks of tupelos shining in the morning light.  We passed other trails that branched here and there off Big Swamp Road; some were marked, including the one to Ferrell Dead River, which I had taken earlier in the year, while others were marked with letters that held no meaning for us.  A new sign marked Albritton Road, which led westward, back to Black Creek.  We continued south, though, until a straight east-west clearing bisected the Road.  Signs indicated we were on the boundary line between George and Jackson Counties.  There we turned east, heading for what looked like a very large, swampy area.  It turned out to be a really beautiful, dry swamp forest, with at least one relict baldcypress.

Beyond the swamp lay what seems to be called (at least in this area) an eddy -- a large pond/small lake off the Pascagoula River, its water replenished by overflows from the River.  A boat lay nearby, its hull riddled with bullet-holes.  We pushed beyond the eddy, until the trail ended on a high bluff overlooking the River, the furthest point of our hike that day.

We were overtaken during the return hike by several friendly, radio-collared hunting dogs, one of which shared the road with us a mile or more and napped while we paused to rest,  before taking its leave.  Still some minutes from the intersection with the east-west trail, we met a friendly older couple on a four-wheeler, headed for a favored fishing spot to the southwest.  They informed us of some very big cypress trees on nearby Albritton Road, which they said eventually wound north to join up with the trail across from Thieves' Landing, where we'd left the kayaks.  I was skeptical, as my only hike in that area of Big Swamp in the year prior found the trail vanishing in the trackless bottomland; but we were eager to see more relict cypresses and new territory, and to shave if we might some time off our return hike.

Very soon our detour was rewarded with some hulking, wizened old cypresses near and around a small lake where several boats were moored.  The lake has no name on my maps of the area, so I am calling it Mystics' Lake, after the rather ancient, unearthly presence of the grandfather cypresses along the shoreline.

Unfortunately, not far past the lake and a network of dried-up sloughs, the trail faded and vanished, and we were left to navigate as best we might.  Luckily, after a half hour or so of brisk walking and frequent checking of the GPS, we found ourselves back on the trail, and were back at the boats and crossing Black Creek in short order.  Our total hike was a little less than eight miles.


The south of Big Swamp.  Ferrell Dead River and Lingum Lake are to the north of our location here.

The dry swamp.

German Slough, tamed by the drought.

Nuttall's Oak.

Palmetto graces the bottomland.

South on Big Swamp Road.  Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

We find old boats like this sometimes in odd corners of Big Swamp.  

The eddy as seen on Google Earth.

Impressive swamp nearer the Pascagoula River.


 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

We found ourselves, as usual, across from an inviting sandbar on the Pascagoula.



Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Swamp chestnut oak on the George-Jackson County line.  I have seen many impressive individuals of this species, but this one may be the largest yet.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.


Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

The bark on this young cypress has been severely shredded.




 Dry slough near Albritton Road, en route to Mystics' Lake.  Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Another Old One, lording it over his corner of Big Swamp along Albritton Road.

This red maple's roots found ample purchase on a baldcypress stump.  Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Mystics' Lake.  Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.




We neither saw nor heard evidence of ivorybills, though the habitat is superb.  We did spy a number of large woodpecker cavities, and though none of them struck me as unusual or intriguing, it is difficult (if not impossible, for me) to make substantive determination from cavities alone.  Feeding sign, in the form of Campephilus-style bark scaling, is still (to my mind) a more sure route of detecting Ivorybill activity in an area.  With that in mind, I will likely return in January to the only locale in our search area I feel relatively comfortable bears that kind of sign -- the Stronghold, around and below Hutson Lake, in the north of the Pascagoula River WMA.  Reports for the next 2-3 months will likely be brief, and light on the photography, save for those rare visits to uncharted areas in the Basin.


Friday, November 25, 2016

New Post on the Project Coyote Site

Our friend Mark updated the Project Coyote site this week with an image-heavy important post discussing the nuances of woodpecker scaling.  While the focus is on the impressive evidence discovered in their search area in Louisiana, the information is of tremendous relevance to searchers elsewhere, not least to us here in our own area of focus, the Pascagoula River Basin of Mississippi.

Click on the link here, or on the Project Coyote link to the right on this page.

Saturday, November 12, 2016

Search in the Stronghold: 28 October 2016

My brother Brian and I returned to the Stronghold, in the north end of the Pascagoula WMA, to see how the area was faring as autumn laid hold.  We made a wide, leisurely survey, straying often from the old forest road; the intricate network of sloughs leading from Hutson Lake in the north, to Hollow Man Lake and Elephant Man Swamp in the south, are largely high and dry, thanks to a persistent drought.

We started before sunrise.  Silence lay heavy on the darkling woods until well after, the only sounds the tramp of our boots on dry leaves.  Later, woodpecker activity was very high, especially mid-morning.  The yellow-bellied sapsuckers have taken up their winter residence in the bottomland and swamp forest.  The cool dawn gave way to a very pleasant, clear day; temperatures have been consistently well above average for this time of year.

Only once, while working a complex of mostly dry sloughs near Hollow Man Lake, did we hear what sounded like kent-calls, at around 9:15 a.m.  They sounded much like blue jays, only softer; but following the calls south to the lakeshore, we only saw a pair of pileated woodpeckers, which flew off to the swamp forest on the opposite side.  The kent-like calls we heard could have been a white-breasted nuthatch, as the species winters here; but the calls were made in the same general area I heard kent-like calls this past April, when I also had a very problematic sighting, and within a few hundred yards of a large sweet gum with extensive, dramatic bark scaling.

Near the southeastern terminus of the forest road, at Elephant Man Swamp, we turned south into the bottomland, then bore eastward, exploring one of the few parts of this sector we had not visited.  Like much of the bottomland forest in the Stronghold, it was middle-aged oak-gum, with numerous very large dominant and superdominant individuals.

Predawn gloom.  Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

At the south end of one of the large fields in the midst of the bottomland.  Photo:  Brian Carlisle.



Difficult to see in this photo, but there is extensive scaling along the top branches of this live sweet gum, though without a closer view it is impossible to classify as anything other than general woodpecker work.

My sharp-eyed brother spotted this.  The silhouetted bird in the center of the photo is a ruby-crowned kinglet that had gotten caught in the web of a golden silk orb weaver spider, some 15 feet or more above the trail.  We tossed dead branches at the web for several minutes, until finally Brian hit it, and the kinglet zoomed off into the woods.

This large woodpecker cavity in a water oak is easily seen from the main trail.  Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

At the south fork of the forest road.  To the right, Hollow Man Lake; left, Elephant Man Swamp.  Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 The numerous sloughs in the Stronghold normally greatly restrict movement in the area.

 We breakfasted on candy bars and bacon jerky by this Nuttall's Oak.



Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

 Extensive, dramatic scaling on the sweet gum I found on an eventful day back in April of this year.

I believe the tree may be dying.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

I use a "bully horn," really the horn of a water buffalo, to try and mimic woodpecker tapping, including Campephilus-style single knocks and double knocks.  Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Rapping on this Nuttall's Oak today only succeeded in luring a number of squirrels.  Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Brian had brought his small john-boat, which we used after our hike to survey Hutson Lake.

Photo:  Brian Carlisle.

Bright green lichen distinctly stands out from the gray Spanish moss atop this baldcypress.

There were hunters in the same area we were in that day, though we did not see them personally -- only their spent shotgun shells, which we collected on our return hike.  We will have to wear blaze orange on all our forays into old Ivorybill country for the next few months.

Friday, November 4, 2016

Among Friends

On October 20, my brother Brian Carlisle and I had the pleasure of attending a meeting of the Pascagoula River Basin Alliance (PRBA) at the University of Southern Mississippi's Gulf Coast Reasearch Laboratory, in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.  The PRBA's members are an eclectic group representing industry, state government, academia, and concerned citizens groups, as well as the Nature Conservancy.  We were pleased and honored to be invited to attend, and to give a short presentation regarding our search for evidence of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the lands of the Basin.  There we made some new friends, and learned about the ongoing efforts of the PRBA as stewards of the Pascagoula River Basin, which I like to call Mississippi's Last Best Place.  Of tremendous importance to the wildlife of the region, we learned that the Nature Conservancy recently completed transfer of their first Forest Legacy Acquisition Project to the Mississippi Forestry Commission -- to become the 2,100 acre Leaf River State Forest, linking vital habitats along the Pascagoula River and its tributary, the Leaf River.

Now for a bit of housekeeping:  repairs to my desktop computer should be completed soon, so I will be able to more easily update the blog as necessary at better quality than I am currently able, beginning with our last visit to the Stronghold on October 28.

Thanks to those of you still following our efforts here in old Ivorybill country.  I look forward to the fall/winter/spring search season at hand, and to sharing our finds with you on this site.  We still walk these old woods with hearts and minds open to the great Possibility.

Best wishes,
Chris


Sunday, October 23, 2016

The Land Between the Rivers: Pascagoula Headwaters, 24 September 2016

In the dawn hours of Friday, September 23, my brother Brian Carlisle and I kayaked up the Pascagoula River to its headwaters, where the Leaf and Chickasawhay Rivers meet.  It was a place I had longed to visit.  The area is protected by the Nature Conservancy, in the form of the Charles M. Deaton Preserve, named after one of the founders of the Conservancy's Mississippi chapter.  We kayaked upstream from the boat landing near the bridge at Merrill to a sandbar on the Chickasawhay side.  A couple of minutes of scouting yielded the tail end of a trail, which we followed west-northwest, paralleling the Leaf.  The habitat is young to middle-age hardwood forest, dotted with baldcypress, and occasional sycamores of considerable size.  Many songbirds made their presence known, but I did not feel the woods there held much potential in terms of ivorybills.  We explored for a half hour or so, then made our way back to the kayaks.

After driving around for a while along the roads to the east of the River, we found ourselves at the launch site we had used in 2015 to reach the heavily forested lands around Booger Hole Slough, possibly (to my knowledge) the northernmost lake in the WMA.  A large flock of turkeys greeted us from the big sandbar on the opposite bank.  We put in, kayaking upstream much further than we had last year, until we reached a very large, densely forested island in the midst of the Pascagoula River.  Since it is not named on Google Earth, I have called it Pree Island, after nearby Pree Eddy.  It is managed by the Nature Conservancy.  The forest there is fully mature bottomland hardwood, with a nice mix of oak, sweet gum, and sycamore, with baldcypress in the lower areas and near the edges.  Not much woodpecker work evident, though as with any patch of forest here this time of year it is difficult to spot due to the leaves.  After exploring a clear, cool stream that divides the island from the mainland to the east, we launched back into the Pascagoula.  Exhausted from kayaking upstream and hiking Pree Island, we allowed the River to carry us downstream.

Brian stands at the cofluence of the Leaf and Chickasawhay Rivers, where the Pascagoula River is born.  The Pascagoula is the largest free-flowing river (by volume) in the lower 48 States. 

(Photo:  Brian Carlisle.)

 Grove of black willows near the Chickasawhay River.

  Brian along the bank on the Leaf River side.




 Downstream view, heading back to the landing.

We floated our kayaks along the shoreline for a good part of the way upriver to Pree Island.  The water level is very low.  Burn bans are in place for most of the counties of south Mississippi.



This shallow stream is currently all that separates Pree Island from the east bank.  During seasonal flooding, it will become a broad arm of the Pascagoula.  

Amidst the sweet gums and saw palmetto on Pree Island.

NOTE:  I am currently working from a smallish, borrowed laptop computer until my desktop PC is repaired.  Until then, blog entries will tend to be brief, like this one.