Learning to Live with the Katrina Blues
February 4th 2008
A watch of Gulf Coast Birders in their natural habitat.
Saturday I made my fifth trip to the coast since late December. This time I went to the World Wetlands Day celebration at Grand Bay NERR (by the way, NERR is short for National Estuarine Research Reserve) with help from Grand Bay National Wildlife Refuge and the Mississippi Gulf Coast Audubon. You do know that February second is World Wetlands Day, don’t you? And you know that World Wetlands Day celebrates the signing of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands back in 1971 in Ramsar, Iran. And I’m sure you know that today more that 150 countries are signatory to the treaty, including even the USA as of 1986. I thought so—yeah, me too.
So, Mark Woodrey who played host for this gathering expected about fifteen people. More than fifty showed up for a chance to look at dormant pitcher-plants and wade through wet pine savanna after Henslow’s Sparrows. It was a beautiful Candlemas day on which any groundhog, marmot, badger, or bear could have seen his shadow even with eyes half-shut, but don’t worry, no matter what the varmints say, winter now half-way over, and we’ll soon be complaining about the heat.
This overflow crowd has been the norm for my recent trips south. It’s great to see the large numbers of people on the Coast coming out to field trips and nature presentations. I’m predicting that the Coast will have record numbers in the Great Backyard Bird Count this year.
I have come to appreciate these nature-attuned people. They all carry an undercurrent of sadness for they still live under the shadow of Hurricane Katrina. Even in Hattiesburg we have a little of this shadow—an abandoned house, a tattered blue tarp, our broken and sparse hardwoods are all reminders of our own scars.
But on the Mississippi Coast I have driven the streets of towns that have been destroyed—erased, gone. I have found myself lost time and again in neighborhoods that I’ve known well for more than thirty years. On each trip I drift down highway 90 looking for landmarks that are just not there. These coastal natives have persevered for two and a half years, now, slowly learning to navigate new and dangerous waters of life after the Storm. It has taken a toll. You can see it when they get quiet and still. But it has also brought them a kindness and compassion you don’t find often. These people have pushed aside their Katrina blues to embrace Lin and me as if we areg-lost cousins.
My birding trips on the coast have been joyful times, full of laughter. These people are ready to laugh, ready to enjoy nature, and they’re ready to fight for it, once again, one more time, into the breech. Thanks guys.
