Birding with Birders

 Baton Rouge, LA

Birders are the same everywhere it seems

We Used The Alarm Clock Today

This morning we got up at 6am.  We had to use the alarm clock we brought along (yea we could just use phones but shut up about the phones!) to wake us up.  We don't use the alarm often but when we do it reminds us of how nice it is to just wake up when you want to wake up.  We arrived at Bluebonnet Swamp at 7am just in time for the walk.  We saw the tell tale sign of birders, older people milling around with cameras, binoculars. and scopes.  It was a great group of friendly people.  They saw our Washington plates as we drove in so we got a lot of, "long drive for a bird walk" comments.  We got to share our adventures and goals and future plans with perfect strangers and it was nice.  Some of the birders on the walk were very knowledgeable about other things like trees, fungi, and insects so we learned a lot.  It was a really fun walk and I hope we can find more during our future stays.

The lichen with the red outline is Christmas Lichen

These tiny mushrooms were incredibly beautiful.  Trooping Crumble Caps

This is a gall midge on the back of a cypress leaf.

Who will watch the watchers?

Some species of Oyster Mushroom.  These were giant

It was foggy and the birds were fast so I didn't get any photos of birds.  We did get good views of a Barred Owl but I was so caught up in staring at it that I forgot to try to snap a photo.  

Tomorrow we pack and then on Monday we do a drive to NOLA.  We are looking forward to the next stop.

If you missed the last post you can find it here.

The Tallest United States State Capitol Building in the World!

 Baton Rouge, LA

Donna signs in at the capitol building.

A Capitol Skyscraper

Today we made our way to the Louisiana State Capitol Building.  It's 450ft tall and the tallest skyscraper in Baton Rouge and the seventh tallest building in Louisiana.  It's the 13th building used as the capitol.  It was built in 1931 and spearheaded by Huey P. Long, the highly influential and arguably corrupt Louisiana politician I talk about here.  He was gunned down in his own building at the age of 42.  

Cool Art Deco Pelicans are placed around the building outside.

They were still in the middle of their decorating for Christmas

The Senate Chambers

We stood on or near the spot that Huey P. Long was shot.

It's very popular.  You have to take different elevators to the top.

Cool doorknobs that appear to be cared for poorly.

The views from the top were amazing

The Mighty Mississippi River with the Huey P. Long bridge crossing it in the distance

A riverboat casino

A cool but weird out of place mural at the top of the tower

Donna pointed out this odd George Washington faced cherub.  

The House Chambers

The brass work on the way out had birds

It was a cool visit but not one of our top 5 capitol buildings.  There wasn't a whole lot to see and not much history.  I guess that is the job of the old capitol building here.  

That's it for today.  If you didn't read the last post you can see it here.

Bluebonnet Swamp

 Baton Rouge, LA

Another day, another boardwalk to walk along.

Bluebonnet Swamp Nature Center

Today we drove to the Bluebonnet Swamp Nature Center.  We wanted to see mushrooms that might have sprung up since the rain yesterday as well as birds so we spent our time looking down and up as we walked.  BSNC has a network of trails and boardwalks leading from the Nature Center.  The Nature center has some nice displays as well as some enclosures with snakes and other wildlife from Louisiana and beyond.

There were many snakes and turtles being looked after here.

They had a wall of insects you might see in the area.  They were only slightly larger than real life.

They also sold this hat that didn't appeal to me at all.

We found some Common Script Lichen.  We were looking for Christmas Lichen but didn't find any.

The swamp had some great Bald Cypress growing.

We found some Turkey Tail or False Turkey Tail fungus

We also saw Crowded Parchment 

And Wood ear fungus

The Resurrection Fern as in full resurrection after the rain.

Here is another example of Wood ear.  

I was messing around in Google Photos and found a heatmap of the photos I have stored in it.  It closely resembles our County Map.

Here is our County Map as it stands today.  We are 696 Counties now (including parishes).

That's it for today.  Also posts might not come daily anymore.  We are taking our time to relax in Baton Rouge and I am also playing a lot of Animal Crossing.  I will post interesting things when they happen and I am sure things will get really interesting when we get to NOLA on December 5th.

If you missed my previous post you can find it here.  We learned how Tabasco is made.