Whooping Cranes at White Lake

I saw my first whooping crane in Louisiana last Saturday, ten birds that were brought in from the captive breeding program in Patuxent, MD. They are in a temporary holding pen at White Lake Wetlands Conservation Area, a beautiful refuge of marsh in Vermilion Parish. It's almost 71,000 acres. Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries oversees this area and is a partner with the US Fish and Wildlife Service in this Whooping Crane reintroduction program. In 2004 while working on my Marsh Mission project I got to see how productive and beautiful this marsh is.

I saw my first whooping crane, Grus Americana, in 1973 from the deck of Captain Brownie Brown’s wooden, pink tour boat. He was a real character. At that time there were only a total of 70 whoopers in the world, 51 wild birds and 19 in captivity. The endangered species act was passed that year and I have been interested in studying these rare animals ever since.

According to Dr. George Lowery’s book Louisiana Birds, the last native Whooping Crane in Louisiana was captured in the marsh near White Lake March 11, 1950. There were thirty-eight total birds of this species in the whole world that year. Nationwide their numbers dropped to an all time low of twenty-three in 1953. Since then they have been on slow but steady climb up to more than 500 birds with 382 of those in the wild as of 2009. All because of successful conservation efforts of the USFW Service and many others.

Bob Love, Coastal and Non-game Resources Division Administrator, of LDWF is heading up the effort to restore a population of America’s tallest bird to its historic habitat in southwest Louisiana. He tells me it’s been a full time effort for a year and a half to get the paperwork and infrastructure set up for this release last week. Many of his cohorts have assisted, especially the staff of Rockefeller refuge. Rockefeller was the number one reason the alligator became one of the most successful comebacks of wildlife in America. Tom Hess has been on the staff there for years and has been very instrumental in helping the comeback of the brown pelican and bald eagle in Louisiana. Tom was there on Saturday to put radio collars on the juvenile whooping cranes. I have known Tom and Bob since the early 70’s when I took a few courses in LSU’s wildlife management grad school.

I watched the ten birds from a blind about 100 yards away; the biologist do not want the young birds to imprint on humans. They have been fed by puppet heads that look like adult cranes and are cared for by biologist wearing crane suits. All efforts are to give these birds a chance to make it in the wild and adapt to their new but historic home near White Lake.

Bob looks at this release as a gift to the residents of Southwest Louisiana and another reason to take care and restore our subsiding wetlands. I think and hope this could be a magic nugget that gets us over the hump to do that, save our wetlands, not only for the whooping crane, alligator, egrets and wood ducks, but also for the wonderful people of coastal Louisiana. If you want to help the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Foundation has a special fund for the whooping crane project. Private funds are needed. To donate please visit: www.wlf.louisiana.gov/lwff and be sure to note on your gift: The Whooping Crane Fund. 

Japanese Magnolias

Boom, a burst of pink and purple brightens the streets of Baton Rouge.  The Japanese Magnolias are ready to erupt any day now in these wild colors contrasting starkly with the browns and grays of winter vegetation. Soon, you will be able to see some of my favorite trees on Highland Road.  The bloom is late in my book, as I have seen them pop out as early as January 8^th in warmer years.  South Louisiana has had two cold winters sandwiching a hot dry summer of 2010. Pretty weird that we had no freezes or frost in the winter of 2008/09, then about 20 last year and are working on 20 this year too.  These have been cold hard freezes for the south; my birdbath has had an inch of ice on it five times this winter.  Last year we had two 5 inch snows.

Weather though is one of my tools. As a nature photographer weather along with light makes or breaks a photograph. A colleague of mine says that there has been a picture taken of everything in nature. (Except for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker) I won’t totally agree with that, but you do need some spectacular light and great technique to get a different rendition of a great egret or a grove of bald cypress trees. Rain, wind, cold or snow makes it hard on the cameras and the body, but that’s when you need to be out there working the many beautiful habitats of Louisiana.  

Finally some color is on its way. Get ready for spring.

Be sure to also check out the WEATHER photo album I recently posted at my Facebook page: HERE

Big Cypress Slough

To me the only thing better than paddling slowly through a forest of bald cypress trees would be to go back in time and paddle through a virgin stand of the same.  Today though I was with some huge trees. The majestic cypress I drifted by were ancient; their fluted and buttress bases were thirty, forty and some even fifty feet in circumference. They grew amongst a number of younger trees. Because they did not have a good saw log they escaped the clear cuttings of the early 1900’s.

It was cold and still with blue skies and the reflections of the trees on the clear water made good photos.  Wood ducks flushed ahead of us as we paddled quietly. Great Blue herons squawked as they launched into flight from the treetops. Schools of pan fish scurried ahead. No turtles or alligators showed their face on this winter day, but signs of raccoons and otters were on every floating log.  Occasionally breaking into the sounds of nature we could hear the hum of big tugs pushing barges on the Mississippi or a four-wheeler carrying a deer hunter to his stand. But mainly it was quiet, peaceful and fantastically beautiful.  A boat, water and big trees…what more could I want?

Press Release: Eagle Expo Photo Workshop 2011

PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release

Put your digital camera to work in wildlife photography with CC Lockwood.  Much has changed in nature photography in the last 30 years. CC will teach you to improve your photographs through this workshop which is in conjunction with the Morgan City Eagle Expo.

February 11, 2011- 9 am LECTURE: CC will lecture on the techniques for bird and landscape photography with emphasis on digital photography.

February 11, 2011-Noon: Field trip with Black Guidry via a boat trip to an eagle nest to photograph Bald Eagles, other wildlife and landscapes.

This workshop is open to photographers at all levels of expertise as well as non-photographers, but space is limited so reserve your spot early.

More details on signing up can be found HERE

About CC Lockwood:

Wildlife photographer C.C. Lockwood has lived and worked in fragile ecosystems whose preservation shapes his artistry. Through words and images, he has captured the unique sense of space in wild places as diverse as Louisiana swampland and the rugged backcountry of the American West. His work has earned him international acclaim as an environmental artist, including the Sierra Club's Ansel Adams Award for conservation photography. Lockwood's work continues to reflect changes and perils in the natural world.

Contact:

Amy Shutt, public relations

Cactus Clyde Productions

Ph: 225.769.4766

www.cclockwood.com

Atchafalaya Basin Fall Workshop Report

The weather was marvelous, as it usually is on a Louisiana fall day, when we ventured into Grand River Flats with six canoes for my Atchafalaya Basin photography workshop, which was held a couple of weeks ago in late November.  The low sun and scattered clouds gave all a great opportunity for landscape photos of the bald cypress trees decorated with roosting cormorants and ancient stumps cut in the cypress logging hey day of the early 1900s.

The surprise was numerous 4 to 5 foot alligators and one seven footer, we were not expecting gators since we have had some frosts already this year. All 10 students got close. I reminded everyone that in my first years out here when the alligators were endangered I rarely saw one in this part of the basin.

Sunset was colorful and the cypress trees continued to gain more cormorants, as the evening grew dark. We also saw two bald eagles that have a nest nearby.

 Check out our next workshop on February 11 at the Eagle Expo in Morgan City, where we will visit an eagle’s nest in Terrebonne Parish. Stay tuned for more info on that coming soon. And, don’t forget, the next Atchafalaya workshop will be in March 2010.  Hope you can join us.

Low Water on the Mighty Mississippi

Sunday, I had a guest in town from the mountains of New Mexico.  He’s a river guide, boat builder, musician, author and artist by the name of Renny Russell. He was with us last month when we rowed the Grand Canyon for 19 days.  He heard so much about Louisiana on the trip, a visit was necessary, and he wanted to see the Mississippi River.  He was flabbergasted that Old Man River has an average of 600,000 cubic feet per second of water as compared to only 8,000 cfs on the Colorado, with its raging rapids.

Renny Russell and Susan Roland stroll the beach.

With six others and two boats we ventured out to an island in the Mississippi below Angola.  When we arrived 1,000 white pelicans were resting on a massive sand bar on the upstream tip of the island. 

CC on a huge sandbar.

They flew eventually and circled high above showing the black feathers on their wings contrasting all the white.  

Part of the flock of a thousand pelicans circle overhead.

We walked the beach and ventured into the willow cottonwood forest on the higher ground.  These islands as most on the lower Mississippi are covered with water during the spring, making it a changing a diverse habitat for many species of wildlife.  

Sycamore and Black Willows grow along the higher ground.

We headed home to an amazing sunset and enjoyed showing a desert dwellers the wonders of a wet Louisiana, for more water passed us, I am guessing than New Mexico has in the whole state.

Lava Falls

Oh what a grand time, on a river, in a canyon with the same name. In 1994 I put my name in for a private river trip on the mighty Colorado, a river with 80 named rapids. It also contains a number of big riffles and powerful eddies in the 226 mile stretch from Lee's ferry to Diamond Creek. I finally did it last month with family and friends.  As you can see in this video of my dory flipping in the biggest rapid in the grand canyon, it was quite an adventure.

I will blog more about this trip after I get back from speaking on the oil spill at a conference in Costa Rica. It was quite a shock going from 19 peaceful nights under the stars in the Canyon to going through thousands of ugly photos of the oil spill.