Forty Years Ago in the Lower Rio Grande Valley: Day Two


Back in late May of 1983, four members of the Lancaster County Bird Club—Russ Markert, Harold Morrrin, Steve Santner, and your editor—embarked on an energetic trip to find, observe, and photograph birds in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas.  What follows is a daily account of that two-week-long expedition.  Notes logged by Markert some four decades ago are quoted in italics.  The images are scans of 35 mm color slide photographs taken along the way by your editor.


DAY TWO—May 22, 1983

Our goal today was to continue traveling and reach western Louisiana.

“We were on our way at 6:08.  Stopped for a quick lunch in the camper and drove to Vinton, Louisiana, KOA.  Lots of hard rain through Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama.

Day Two: Sweetwater, Tennessee, to Vinton, Louisiana, a distance of 786 miles.  (United States Geological Survey base image)

As we crossed Mississippi and entered Louisiana, we left the rain and the Appalachians behind.  Upon crossing the Mississippi River, we had arrived in the West Gulf Coastal Plain, the physiographic province that extends all the way south along the Texas coast to Mexico and includes the Lower Rio Grande Valley.  West of Baton Rouge, we began seeing waders in the picturesque Bald Cypress swamps—Great Egrets, Green Herons (Butorides virescens), Little Blue Herons (Egretta caerulea), and Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus) were identified.  A Pileated Woodpecker was observed as it flew above the roadside treetops.

The rains we endured earlier in the trip had left there mark in much of Louisiana and Texas.  Flooding in agricultural fields was widespread and the flat landscape often appeared inundated as far as the eye could see.  Along the highway near Vinton, we spotted the first two of the many southern specialties we would find on the trip, a Loggerhead Shrike (Lanius ludovicianus) and a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Tyrannus forficatus), both perched on utility wires and searching for a meal.

Loggerhead Shrike
Near Vinton, Louisiana, a Loggerhead Shrike was on the lookout for either a large insect or small bird upon which it could prey.  (Vintage 35 mm image)

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