Two Pack & Paddle guides met up with folks at Lorraine Bridge for an early morning paddle on Bayou Lacassine. This trip was schedule in cooperation with the Yellow Rails and Rice Festival located in Jennings, so we had birders and non-birders. Several states were represented by the bird-watchers in the group, as was evident by some of the accents.
We started the paddle going north with a slight chill in the air and a little wind. Actually, it felt colder at 7:30 on the water than it did at 5:30 in Lafayette. The Lacassine is a pretty bayou, definitely worth paddling with very little boat traffic. We happened to meet some local fellas putting their boat in at the dock as we were launching, they said they were going to go up river a ways to do a little squirrel hunting.
We all headed up the bayou in search of the ivory-billed woodpecker. Not really, but we did do an awful lot of joking about hearing the ivory-bill. We did hear lots of pileated woodpeckers and yellow-bellied sapsuckers, they are always a treat. There were belted kingfishers and eastern phoebe’s calling down the bayou as we paddled by. When the sun finally topped the trees and cast it’s warmth upon us, it was a relief.
The birding could have been better but the company was worth, at least, a yellow rail.
-Stacey Scarce, Trip Leader
