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During the rice harvest, we had the opportunity to actually ride the combine to see rails flying up close. This also provided a good break time to help us digest our most recent Cajun meal. Photo by guide Tom Johnson.

It might take a few weeks to recover from the delicious food and fantastic birds that were packed into the three full days of this tour. Light kidding aside, Dan and I had a great time with the group while experiencing some very fun and often underappreciated aspects of American birding.

After arriving to our hotel in Lafayette and heading to a nearby restaurant to enjoy crawfish, boudin, and other fine Cajun fare, we were all ready to get some sleep. The first full day of the tour found us heading west to the rice country near Thornwell. We birded fields, hedges, and bayous during the morning hours, finding migrants like Greater White-fronted Geese, Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, warblers, and sparrows. In the afternoon, we hoped to have a first shot at watching rails flushing ahead of a rice harvesting combine in conjunction with the 2014 Yellow Rails and Rice Festival. Unfortunately, a mechanical issue prevented the combine from working properly, but not before Dan spotted a beautiful dark morph Harlan's Red-tailed Hawk and I ended up tripping and falling into the muddy water of an unharvested rice field. Reinvigorated by this amusement, we ended up walking a few fields in search of other rice country birds, eventually turning up a cagey Le Conte's Sparrow. Another Cajun feast capped off the opening day of the tour.

On Saturday morning, we drove down to the Gulf Coast near Cameron. We had spectacular views of Clapper Rail, Seaside Sparrow, and Nelson's Sparrow, and enjoyed watching a wide diversity of other coastal birds from the vantages at the East Jetty on the mouth of the Calcasieu River. A phone call from the rice country alerted us to the much-anticipated repair of the rice combine, so we pulled up stakes and headed north for the crown jewel of this tour. Throughout the afternoon, we watched many dozens of rails flying up in front of the working combine, including many Sora, several Virginia, one King, and about TEN Yellow Rails! We even rode the combine, getting a marvelous perspective of these secretive birds as they popped out of the rice fields. The day ended with a loop around Lacassine Pool, where we found a young Purple Gallinule, legions of Common Gallinules, and a few American Alligators. We ended this day with eight species of rails, a grand total indeed.

Having satisfied our rail cravings in the rice country, Sunday was spent to the north in pursuit of pineywoods specialties. Though we were able to quickly find flocks of Pine Warblers, Brown-headed Nuthatches, and other songbirds, both Bachman's Sparrow and Red-cockaded Woodpecker remained elusive through the morning hours. A lovely Thai lunch (who'd have thought we'd find THIS in western Louisiana?) prepared us for an afternoon of searching through the woods, which finally paid off with scope views of Bachman's Sparrow and a wonderfully accommodating group of five Red-cockaded Woodpeckers.

Dan and I enjoyed sharing the birds of western Louisiana with everyone over the long weekend, and we hope to see all of you down the road.

Thanks,

Tom Johnson

KEYS FOR THIS LIST
One of the following keys may be shown in brackets for individual species as appropriate: * = heard only, I = introduced, E = endemic, N = nesting, a = austral migrant, b = boreal migrant

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS

Other animals included some great views of some very impressive American Alligators, including a photogenic individual at Lacassine Pool.

Totals for the tour: 135 bird taxa and 5 mammal taxa