Gator sighting

Drove down Highway 90 along the coast Wednesday and saw orange vested workers laying out large black garbage bags – full of trash or material to fight oil? Also noticed large areas marked off with sand fences to protect the nesting least tern. Maybe they’ll hatch their broods before the potential catastrophe hits.

from National Geographic

The irony is that we went in search of nature this weekend while my parents were visiting, and here are these terns right down the street. We drove out to Pascagoula to find this estuarine research area I had read about, but the directions I had transcribed made no sense in the locale. While wandering cluelessly, we happened to pass by a shed with a sign out front reading Gator Ranch, so I circled back to ask directions. The Cajun in charge didn’t know the place I was talking about, but he offered us a swamp boat ride. The price was too stiff for our large crowd, but we did pay $5 each to see the gators at the ranch.

We received a personal tour from one of the newer Cajuns on staff, who told us he got the job because he just loved running swamp boats. He showed us the baby gators and the toddler gators and then we got to look around on our own to see the teenager gators. It was worth the five dollars to see him walk into the gator pen barefooted.

I didn’t know that gators could grow a foot a year until they are about six; then they only grow about an inch a year. Their metabolism really slows down.

I also didn’t know that snapping turtles can live up to 200 years. One of the more excited incidents from my youth spent next door to a retaining pond, was the capture and barbecuing of a large snapper. The one at Gator Ranch is supposedly close to 110 if his rings can be trusted. He was also in old man metabolism mode and barely moved.

I can’t decide if this counts on my siting list.

Got back in the car to find the nature center and ended up at a city park that had a playground, lake with walking path, and a little building designated the nature center, which was closed by the time we arrived. Driving up we saw some nature in action – a mallard trying to mate with a scovy. So we stopped and ate our picnic supper with the ducks and gulls, then walked around the pond. The kids surprised me by not complaining. Instead they had a great time picking up trash off the bank. They ended up finding a collection of balls in the scum at the edge of the pond. The balls and a couple of plastic toys ended up in the back of the car to take home. Now I have little black beetles in the back of the car.



We tried to find an old Spanish Fort that is supposedly in Pascagoula, but again were frustrated. Instead we ended up at a pier where we watched the sunset and then drove slowly home down the beach road, admiring the large homes with coastal views until we hit the end of the road: a big lot where some big building had been destroyed by Katrina right across a little inlet from Northrup Grunman. The lot was full of fishermen, trying to catch their dinner at dusk, I suppose. It must be a hot spot. We also spotted these handsome ducks, which even my father, the birdman, didn’t recognize.

After checking the bird book, I think they are black breasted whistling ducks.

So we didn’t make it to a trail through the wilds, but we had a good time exploring.