Berry and I loaded up the car and left Memphis around 9am, after placing the hound in the doggie spa. He likes it there, which is good. When the kennel worker took Cosmo back to his room, Cosmo tugged on the leash. We drove south down past where the snow was on the ground. On the way we saw Turkey Vultures and the American Crow. Heading southeast on Lamar to Highway 45 we went to Starkville, Mississippi where we ate lunch.
On the way, we heard frightening medical news about my sister. I spoke with other family members and decided to continue our birding trip. My sister herself texted me back in the afternoon that she was resting and feeling better. Berry and I are both still worried.
The Noxubee Swamp is located inside a huge pine forest. The hardwood bottomland is punctuated at the water with beautiful cypress trees. There were lots of Double Crested Cormorants swimming in the water and drying off on limbs in the water. The only other bird we saw in the water were American Coots.
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There was a nice wooden boardwalk through the cypress trees to a pier on Lake Noxubee. As we walked slowly down the boardwalk, we heard woodpeckers all around us. The first woodpecker that we identified was the Red Cockaded Woodpecker (Picoides borealis). This bird is endangered and only lives in a handful of places, Noxubee Swamp being one.
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Berry identified the next two woodpeckers for us. The Red Headed Woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus) was high in a tree near the hospitality building. The Red Bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) she saw along a forest path that we took. It was woodpeckers all day long. We heard a lot more than we saw.
We had coffee in a cute place called Cuppa in Louisville, Mississippi. It got dark quickly and we drove to Jackson, Mississippi. Berry and I lost our Delorme map of Mississippi. It was in the car, but we searched everywhere and cannot find it. Yikes! After dinner, we went to a bookstore to replace it. The helpful clerk there said that they did not have any Delorme maps of Mississippi. She had maps of everywhere else but not of the state of Mississippi. Go figure.
Robert and Berryphoto courtesy of kegley, rfowler
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