Louisiana

We are back exploring Louisiana again! We arrived yesterday, but too late to go out into the swamp. So, today was our first day of exploration.

We decided to explore Pomme De Terre WMA. We had a hard time finding an entrance, but we finally did and hiked in on an ATV trail. As we walked we saw Palmetto in the understory and heard many buzzy sparrow and warbler calls. None of the calls matched a Bachman's of course.

We hiked away from the trail and into the forest for a first time, but did not find anything interesting, so we went back to the trail and kept going. I then noticed a Garter snake slithering away from our path, so I tried to grab it. But I missed it by an inch and it escaped.

The deeper in we went the taller the trees became, and the understory became denser. Palmetto was everywhere. We found a clearing in the understory and hiked into the forest from that point. We soon came to a marsh, and then we noticed a scaled tree. It was scaled all the way to the ground. There were large chuncks of bark on the ground around the tree. I took pictures of it, and then we went back for the trail.

Farther back on the trail the understory, and the Palmetto became even more dense. We found an area to hike into again, but found nothing. On the way back toward the trail I saw another Garter snake. This time I caught it and held it for a minute, just to look it over. But it bit me and drew a small amount of blood. So back on the trail I washed my hand off, and we moved on.

Further up on the trail we ran into another wonderful reptile, a 2 1/2 foot long alligator. I went up to it and attemped to grab the back of its neck, but it whipped around before I had a good hold. We then figured he was just big enough not to mess with, we took some pictures, and moved on.

After hiking for a long time we decided to turn around and head back to the car. But on the way back we ran in to more animals. They were all not very shy. We saw a rabbit and an Armadillo, and got some up close shots.

After getting to the car We wanted to see if we could get in to Pomme De Terre from the north. We found a trail up there, but it turns out it was private property. The Cajun owners and their "hunting club" weren't happy with us.


And tonight we had dinner with Frank Wiley. With him we got a plan for tomorrow set up. I'm waking up at 4:00 am to meet him tomorrow.

On Sunday we were back for a second time looking for Mountain lions. We were really curious to see what our motion sensing birdcam caught. So we drove up Wye Mountain and then began the short hike along a game trail. It had snowed a few days before and there were a few patches of snow still on the ground, so we were looking for tracks in it.

When we came up to our birdcam we saw the the chicken we used as bait was gone. We checked the camera and found that there were 7 images on it. We took the camera off the tree and began hiking farther into the woods, we wanted to plant a timelapse camera farther out. We hiked on a slope and over some outcrops of rocks. We finally found an open area good for a timelapse camera near a dead tree with some Pileated Woodpecker holes in it. We positioned the camera on a tree and faced it looking across the slope. Then we began the hike back and left.

The motion sensing birdcam got some really good pictures, but no Mountain lions. The camera got a few shots of deer running along the game trail, and even a yellow labrador looking at the camera in the snow! I posted the pictures below. Maybe we'll have a mountain lion on the timelapse camera.

Second Seach: Mountian Lions

We have now begun a new search, one for Mountain Lions. That doesn't mean we have stopped the Ivory-Bill search, it just means we now have two searches. This search began with a camera trap picture of a Moutain Lion near a friends house on Wye Mountain. So my dad and I decided to check it out, because they are said to be extinct in Arkansas.

The Mountain Lion Story in Arkansas goes back a long way in our family. My great grandmother saw a female with 3 cubs near Fayetteville in the early 1970's. She called them "wild Cats." Then in the early 1990's my dad saw a dead Mountain Lion on the side of the road on his way to Fayetteville. He now wishes he stopped to look closer.

All Mountain Lions in Arkansas today are said to be former pets, or decended from former pets of the South American species of Mountian Lion. Of course they're called "pumas" in South America. But the idea of released big cats forming a population seems unlikely, and the camera trap picture that started our search seems to have the weight of a wild cat, not a released pet.

We began our search today with a 30 minute drive through woods and a small town, and then up a mountain. We followed directions from my dad's friend to the exact spot where the camera trap photo was taken. We came to the end of the road on the top of the mountain and hiked in on an ATV trail, looking for tracks as we walked. We then left the path and walked for a while until we found a game trail, then we started to set up our camera trap.

The camera trap we are using is a Birdcam, it didn't really work for the IBWO search because of its motion detection setting, so we repurposed it for this search. We set it about a foot and a half off the ground on a tree, and about 7 feet from the game trail. On the game trail I planted a chicken breast. Then we turned on the camera and headed back out, a quick and painless trip. The chicken will hopefully attract something, if not a Mountain Lion.

And we still have a Camera out in Wattensaw we need to go get...