Ed, back again after four more really fun days of birding in Louisiana and this afternoon my first time in MS. Monday Marian and I got up early, and headed for Grand Isle, Louisiana. Prior to coming down here I had thought that Grand Isle was so destroyed by the hurricane last year that it was not accessible to birding. Communication with a local birder, Rebecca Grieser, via facebook messenger, gave me confidence that it was possible to access good birding areas, though the State Park is closed.

We enjoyed the drive down, the full moon giving way to a beautiful morning, and got to the Lafitte Woods Perserve, a nice swath of trees in the midst of a heavily built community that is a part of the Nature Conservancy programs. We found the parking area easily, and I was excited to see what might be there. In short the answer was not much. BirdCast had projected a very heavy migration on Sunday night, and I know that these birds if they stopped on the coast may not arrive until later in the day, but still I was hopeful. Birders over the weekend had been getting some warblers. I walked the whole area over a couple of hours, and saw exactly zero warblers. We did manage what seemed to be a family of Green Herons, both Baltimore and Orchard Orioles Gray Catbird, and a heard Scarlet Tanager, but I was wondering if I was just missing a lot, but another experienced birder confirmed, nada when we met after I’d been there an hour or so.

The biggest impression of Grand Isle though was just the incredible devastation from Hurricaine Ida. The other impression though was the number of new construction projects in rebuilding. The overall impression was of huge piles of demolished buildings side by side with newly completed construction and construction underway. The trails at the wooded area had been nicely cleared and were no problem at all. After talking with the other birder there we visited another patch of woods just past the supermarket on a road there, and managed to add Royal Tern, but no passerines of note. The Exxon Fields were better, with lots of Clapper Rails calling, and one that finally pranced across the edge of a pond a bit farther out toward the point. Blue-winged Teal were nice to see, and we finally came onto our first real shorebirds of the trip, with 9 species at a shallow marshy area, including 54 American Avocets, both dowichers, and fun sorting through all the shorebirds checking for anything different.

We tried again for migrants at the Lafitt woods before leaving in the afternoon, with no more luck than in the morning, and headed back north.

I planned to make one stop on the way to Baton Rouge, the planned stop for the night, at the Bonnet Carre Spillway. I wanted to stop there specifically because after just finishing a book on the history of the Mississippi River I had learned that it is a key flood control measure for New Orleans where some water of the river can be diverted into Lake Pontchartrain at times of extremely high water. It has been used only a relatively few times since it was built between 1929 ANDM 1931 after the great floods of 1927. It has 350 bays made up of huge 8×12” wooden “needles” that allow some minor seepage anytime the water levels reach the level of the structure. To the naked eye it looks like there are pretty significant gaps, so I suspect this “seepage” is not insignificant. Some or all of the bays can be raised by cranes on the top of the structure to allow water to divert into the lake. Behind the structure is a long lowlands where water can flow from the river into Lake Pontchartrain and then on into the gulf.

Anyway, we first birded the mudflats in front of the spillway finding several new shorebirds for the trip including a small flock of Stilt Sandpipers, at least 2 Greater Yellowlegs mixed with the more numerous Lesser Yellowlegs, a Solitary and a Spotted Sandpiper, several Pectoral Sandpipers, a Semipalmated Plover and lots of Least Sandpipers, Willits and Black-necked Stilts. In addition Bald Eagles, Least Terns, a Gull Billed Tern, and Herring and Ring-billed Gulls were all new for the trip. Then the area behind the spillway gates had large flocks of shorebirds, adding Western and Semi-palmated Sandpipers and Killdeer to the shorebird bonanza. I thought I had Upland Sandpiper hiding in the grass, but they turned out to be Lesser Yellowlegs standing oddly with their heads held really high, then after further thought still think it is an Upland. What do you think of this terrible photo.

The next morning we crossed the river and drove right alongside the river headed north on side roads with the only “hot birds” for me being several Mississippi Kites flying appropriately across the Mississippi River. We looked for a place for lunch, and lucked into the Audubon State Historical Site. I thought what more appropriate a place to have lunch and wander around hoping to finally find some warblers. It was a jackpot, with spectacular grounds on the Oakley Plantation where JJA spent a summer living and studying the birds. There are huge old trees, really nice grounds and trails through the forest. Finally we were able to actually see a warbler. Amazingly earlier on the trip I had heard just a few warblers, but literally had not laid eyes on a single one! Here things warmed up with many Northern Parula seemingluy singing from every huge tree. We never did get eyes on one here, but really fun looking. We did get great looks though at the boisterously singing Kentucky Warblers, Hooded Warblers and Wood Thrush that seemed everywhere. Prairie and Pine Warblers were also singing, and overall it was a really nice long lunch stop with great birds. We got to really study an Acadian Flycatcher that was calling and sitting on a prominent branch for a nice long study.

From here we headed to Natchez, leaving Louisiana and setting foot in Mississippi for the first time. We toured the oldest antebellum mansion in the south, the Auburn estate. It was old, and had some cool history, but really underwhelming. The organization maintaining it clearly was struggling to manage, and though it was somewhat interesting neither Marian nor I felt we needed to look at more mansions like this one.

We drove on to Vicksberg and spent the night there. In Vicksberg we started the day at the Vicksberg National Military Park, where we drove around the grounds checking out monunemts and birding. Highlights of the birding for sure was a singing and very cooperative Swainson’s Warbler. For me this was only the second time seeing this species. I missed my first chance in Texas on my first trip there with Ken when I was too slow getting our of the drivers seat and around the van to get a look, and then managed after a long time searching on my trip to the Dry Tortugas with Kay, when she missed the bird while taking a break from cold and miserable weather with most of the other birders on the tour. This was better by far.

In the afternoon after driving north a ways we spent several hours at the Yazoo NWR. It is a large refuge a bit east of the river, maybe 30 miles north of Vicksberg. It is a really cool place, with large areas of wooded wetlands, Prothonatary Warblers seemingly singing everywhere, along with nice looks at Northern Waterthrush, Painted Bunting and a total of 43 species for the afternoon.