Birding on the Levee

Even though there has been great deal of development along the River Road in recent years, “the country” is still a short drive from my house. My boy and I headed out there yesterday for some birding along the levee. With the big move looming, I am not sure how many more chances we will have.

You never know what you might see out there. Bald Eagle is on my Baton Rouge list, after former Beth Shalom member Jason W. and I saw one birding at Richfield River Silt some years ago. We did pretty well this time. We saw a small flock of White Ibis, two Great Egrets, and a Green Heron in one small pond on the river side of the levee. The boy predictably did not want walk very far. It was Africa hot. We transitioned to some car birding and cruised through the LSU farms where we saw black necked stilt and two Little Blue Herons standing like two soldiers at attention by the edge of a flooded rice field. Stocky Cattle Egrets were everywhere, living up to their name as they followed the cows through the pastures. The cattle, the white birds surrounding them, the tall grass, the widely dispersed trees hung with Spanish moss created a lazy Louisiana Serengeti. It was a scene that Audubon might have painted as a background for “the Cattle Egret,” had the birds found their way to North America a century or so before their first appearance here in the 1940s.

The River Road has for years been the place I go for a quick sip of serenity-- a place to go to feel “away”. Moving means finding new places of local pilgrimage. This entails both loss and the excitement of new explorations to come. I don’t think we feel at home in a place until we claim pieces of the landscape-- until we plant our flag and say “this place is mine.”