Wetlands at their prime in spring

Louisiana's wetlands are places of unique flora and fauna and serene beauty all year long, but for many naturalists April and May are - and have been for decades - the time when they are at their prime.

By early April the migration of hundreds of species of birds is in full flight and coastal islands such as Grand Isle in southeast Louisiana and Cheniere au Tigre in the southwest - the first landfalls for birds after their long flight across the Gulf - offer a welcome haven where they can rest and eat. Some of them will stay only a few weeks before continuing on to places farther north; others will spend the summer here.

These islands also represent a welcoming place for humans after the dreary days of winter. Naturalist Grace Manners called Grand Isle "a living poem" in an article written in the spring of 1934. In April, she said, "Easter lilies bloom there in the open, the white sandy beach and white topped surf is backed by a wealth of colorful spring flowers, luxuriant shrubs, age old oaks and lanes of stately palms."

She asks, "Can you picture a more inspiring experience than the dawn hours at Grand Isle [in the] Spring? After the ... solemn hush at the ... moment of daybreak ... the great congregation of birds [show] their brilliant hues against the sunrise and the galaxy of song birds ring out their joy and praise."

For Alfred M. Bailey, an ornithologist with the Chicago Academy of Science, Cheniere au Tigre was the place to be in the spring of 1934. He wrote, also in April of that year, this is the time "when the mesquite is in new leaf and the whole world smells of freshly growing vegetation. Prickly pears are massed along the exposed sandy ridges and their yellow ... blossoms are opened in the sunlight with petals invitingly outstretched to welcome the bees which are so seriously attending their own affairs.

"Newly arrived birds perched in the mesquite "work busily through the dense vegetation. ... All along the beach where the warm ... winds send waves rippling over the sands, are many species of shore birds. ... Back of the ridge extending miles to the northward are the great marshes. Seaside sparrows and long-billed marsh wrens nest in security in the mats of grass, and yellow-throated warblers, king birds, and orchard orioles make their homes in bushes along the banks of meandering bayous."

In those days, Cheniere au Tigre was a hospitable place because its "highlands crowned with ... wonderful moss-festooned live oaks, the palmettos and mesquites, [were] the home of a kindly people, for the most part  descended from the Acadians who were banished from their homes in Nova Scotia so many years ago."

Longfellow was describing the Acadian settlement at Grand Pre in old Acadie when he wrote in "Evangeline" of trees "bearded in moss and garments green, indistinct in the twilight." But Bailey said he'd visited the Acadian homelands old and new and that those lines reminded him "more of Louisiana than the cold shores of the North Atlantic."

I think anyone who has been to both places will agree - and suggest that is just another reason why saving our wetlands is so important.

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You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jhbradshaw@bellsouth.net or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.