Ronnie Blackwell

Well, I guess that it had to happen sooner or later. You don’t think that writing a bird-watching column would be all that controversial. Sure, I’ve had people who wrote or even called me to tell me that was just wrong about something I said in a column. And, yes, most of the time they are right. It doesn’t bother me–much. And a little embarassement is good for the blood circulation. And I knew before the story ran that I was venturing into deep water by presuming to have an opinion on a serious subject. But you can find a whole list of former teachers, bosses, and wives that will tell you that I’m a slow learner. And I’m sure that my mother would have something to say on the subject.

Well here is the saga of Mr. Homeland Security, Don’t Build This Fence!!

Letter from Tom the Fifth Generation Texan
I just read your naive little piece in the SunHerald and it must be nice living 1k miles from the border…but don’t fret they’re headed your way as well, and we really don’t care how much you enjoy the wildlife and the excellent birding in the Valley. Perhaps you like to visit there because the valley has about the same percentage of schooling as does Mississippi.

If the fence is a bad idea what would be your idea of a good one…my idea is punji sticks and claymores, but idiotic tourists(I’m not saying who) might stray across these as well, and that could get messy, not that I would care.

Please, in the future keep yourself and your nancy-boy ideas in your “liberal” Ha Ha, haven Mississippi.
Tom, a fifth generation Texan.


Ron’s Reply
Tom,
If you don’t stop jerking your knee at all us Liberal Mississippians, you’re liable to hurt yourself.
What do I think is a good alternative to the fence? I personally liked the electronic virtual fence idea. I know the test stretch proved laughable, but just because a bush was identified as a illegal immigrant doesn’t mean you should trash the whole project. Hey have you ever tried to chase down a tumbleweed on a windy day?! Our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan rely on electronic sensors as do embassies around the world, but we can’t make them work on the border? Our continued reluctance to hire more border patrol officers assures that the future of this fence will be a 3 million dollar per mile support to hand sensors on. Why not just work on perfecting the virtual idea NOW.
–punji sticks? In my last mystery novel (Spite, from Lulu.com) one my characters ran afoul of a bamboo whip–punji stick to the chest. I can’t imagine that this would be popular with the border patrol.
Fact is, I expected to get some hate mail for this column. But I expected it to come from the Midwest where the fence has its strongest support. Maybe they’re just slow to react. Of course those guys want the fence to run along the Ohio River instead of the Rio Grande.
Do you think that we don’t have an illegal immigration problem in South Mississippi? We just had the largest illegal immigrant raid in history at transformer plant thirty miles from my house. And I live in an area that has one of the highest concentrations of chicken houses and processing plants in the country–guess who works in those plants? AND, surprise- surprise, several of the tens of thousands of guest workers who came to South Mississippi to work in the clean-up and rebuilding after Katrina missed their bus back home. I don’t know where you live in Texas, but unless it is in the Valley or in South Houston, I bet we’ve got more Tiendas per capita than you do. Not that I’m complaining about that. I do love Texican cooking.
I didn’t just decide to spew ignorance around on a whim. I spent a long time researching my story. And I’ve got friends and relatives in Texas, including a few in the Valley. Now, my relatives are much more likely to share your views than mine; but they’ve got an excuse–they are originally from Mississippi where fear of change is a tradition. But my birding friends in the Valley don’t support what they call the wall. The Texas Governor doesn’t support it. No Texas legislator from the Valley supports it. No Valley Mayor supports it. No Valley city council supports it. No Valley chamber of commerce supports it. I must say, that Hildago is taking the project much better than other places, but I think that’s because Hildago got the Feds to use and improve their existing levee system and old fencing–no disruption, no destroying parks and recreational land and free flood control (sounds like a good deal if you can get it).
I believe that controlling our borders is essential (by the way did you MISS that part of my column?), but I don’t think that relying on some joker sitting in Washington with a map and a magic marker is the way to do this. The miles of fence to be put up was arbitrary. Who decreed that what we need is 700 miles of fence on the 2,000 mile border? I expect that it was the same guy who promised that all 700 miles would be finished by January, 2009. The fence path was so poorly drawn that it would have put one of the buildings on the UT Brownsville campus on the Mexican side of the fence.
I’ve been trying to kick my libertarian habit for thirty years and learn to accept that the freedom-sucking Federal government will have its way, but when the Feds show up in your town and and say we’re going to cut your property in half an deny you access to the southern half, how will you like it?
You say that you’re a fifth generation Texan. I find that interesting because many of the ranchers whose land is being sliced in two are also fifth generation Texans. And some of these families owned the docks that Richard King and Mifflin Kenedy brought their first steam boats up the river to Brownsville. The Valley is not a stranger to legacy and opportunity. Think about it. If you have worked on a long-term project–say planting a stand of hardwoods and rehabbing the pond that your grandfather dug on the property–maybe even put up a couple of wood duck nests. Then one day you find two guys and a transit and level messing around your pond. You go down to tell them that they must be lost, and they tell you that, no, they’re not lost. They are shooting the path of a brand new four-lane highway that’s going to cut your land in two right at the pond. They say that this will be an important road so that gamblers can get to the coast faster and lose their money. (This kind of thing happened here recently just north of Gulfport.) It’s for the public good. How would you feel about that?
Do you really think that building this fence, in this haphazard way is going to reduce the number of illegal immigrants butchering chickens in South Mississippi? If you think so, just use google maps to look at the fence that they’ve actually built along the Arizona border. I hear people in Yuma actually like their piece of fence, but it hasn’t been too popular anywhere else. The fence shows up as a nice black line, but you can also see the thousands of trails through the brush, along the ridges, and in every stream bed. I’ve traveled along a good bit of the Arizona border–yes looking at birds– and I can tell you that there aren’t nearly enough deer out there to make those trails.
Tom, I’m sorry you don’t care that I enjoy watching wildlife and eating great food in the Valley. I would be happy to see you come to one or more of our casinos on the Mississippi Coast. But please make sure to spend lots of money while you’re here so you can balance out us birders going to Texas. A 2003 a study by Fermata inc.(http://www.fermatainc.com/ttt_trail.html) estimated that birders traveling to Texas had an economic impact of almost $4,500 per birder (I certainly hope that I don’t reach that average, mind you). And I can’t imagine that the hunters and fisherman spend any less.
You may be a fifth generation Texan, but I’m at least a tenth generation redneck–no brag, just fact. There is a story around here that I find hard to refute. Folks say that Blackwells always think that they’re right, regardless of the facts. We Blackwells say why would we ever think that we’re wrong? I tell you, being right all the time can be a burden. Truth is, I’m stubborn as the day is long. And I want what I want. And what I want is more woods and swamp and scrub and mountains and less concrete and four-lanes and fences. Is that so much to ask? Hell, by the time they get though covering the land with strip malls, and highways, and fences you won’t be able to tell a Mississippi swamp from a Texas prairie and it won’t matter what generation you are and where you’re from.
So, Tom, whenever you get around to coming over to spend some that Texas good money in Mississippi, drop me a line, and we’ll go to the swamp and I’ll show you some Mississippi birds. Then we can go find a Tienda and argue about Mexican food.
I do thank you for taking the time to read my work,
Take care,
Your liberal, Long-haired Redneck, Nancy-boy, Libertarian, Nature Nut,
Ron Blackwell

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click on the pictures to see larger versions!

Woodpeckers from the genus Melanerpes are some of the most fascinating of birds. Melanerpes is latin for “black creeper.” There are six species in the genus, and none seem to have any more black than you would expect from a woodpecker. They don’t seem anymore creepy than other woodpeckers, either. We have two species here in South Mississippi the Red-headed Woodpecker and the Red-bellied Woodpecker. The two are often confused by beginning birders, mainly I think because the two birds both have red heads, and neither has a noticeable red belly.

It’s all Mark Catesby’s fault. Catesby was a young Englishman who visited his sister in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1712. The first bird that Catesby saw as he got off the boat was a Red-headed Woodpecker. That bird seemed so wonderfully exotic that it inspired Catesby to become the first naturalist to systematically describe and paint Colonial America’s flora and fauna, a task that would consume his professional life. Red-headed Woodpeckers are edge-lovers, and even in 1712, these birds had developed the habit of hanging around the ultimate edge-makers—homo sapiens. Catesby no doubt turned to the nearest colonist for an identification and was told, “That’s a red-headed Woodpecker, aye?”

And so it became. Later Catesby would encounter the Red-bellied Woodpecker and ask the same question, and I imagine that he got the same answer. When he began to skin that bird —yes, birding was just a bit different in those days— he found that it had a red blush around its vent, and the bird was named after a feature that no self-respecting woodpecker would show in public. A little more investigation by Catesby would have turned up several other colloquial names for this Melanerpes, including Ladder-back, Zebra Woodpecker, and my favorite, the Calico Woodpecker.

Of course, Catesby was working without a net. He landed on American shores when Carl Linnaeus was a five-year-old Swedish boy who hadn’t even dreamed of inventing binomial nomenclature, the system that is still used to describe and classify all living things. Catesby honored many local colloquial names, and when he created names from whole cloth he was straightforward. He named the Downy Woodpecker the “Smallest Spotted Woodpecker” and the Ivory-billed he called the “Largest White-billed Woodpecker.” He published his Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands between 1731 and 1743.

When Linnaeus did grow up and revolutionize how man looks at this world, he followed Catesby’s example by building on the knowledge that was already there. He used Catesby’s careful observations in his descriptions of North American birds seventy-one times. Thus, we still see many of our birds through Mark Catesby’s eyes. He gave us “Yellow-rump”—now the Yellow-rumped Warbler, “Pine Creeper”—the Pine Warbler, “Cat-bird”— the Gray Catbird, “Oyster Catcher”—American Oystercatcher, “Humming-bird”—the Ruby-throated Hummingbird and many more.

I’ve always been a fan of Mark Catesby, nevertheless, the man simply made a mess of our Southern Melanerpes. I know it’s been just a smidgen less than three hundred years since young Catesby made this blunder, but is it too late to correct the mistake? I think not!

I hereby move that Southern birders start calling the bird known to science as Melanerpes erythrocephalus the Red-hooded Woodpecker and that we also restore to the bird whose scientific name is Melanerpes Carolinus the name of Calico Woodpecker.

Do I hear a second?

Jeremy Nicholson got shot of a nice Calico Woodpecker.

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Matt Tillett found his Blueberry Summer Catbird in Maryland’s Patuxent NWR. –Creative Commons Attribution, No Derivatives, 2.0 Generic.

This year our side yard to the west of Ronalin is even more of a jungle than usual, despite my sporadic efforts to blaze a path through the wilderness all the way to the back yard. During the summer this tangle serves as the nursery for our resident songbirds. Cardinals, towhees, mockingbirds, thrashers, catbirds, wrens, and house finches, Blue Jays and more have used the thick vines, shrubs and hollies to raise young over the years. Yesterday I walked out of the door about six in the afternoon and felt just a touch of cool breeze in the air. I grabbed a pruning saw and some shears and headed for the western yard.

Although that breeze had whispered Spring to me, I found Blueberry Summer waiting. Our twenty-year-old Rabbit-eye Blueberries were heavy with fruit, hanging like dusky thrush eggs. I know it’s sacrilege in the eyes of many purists to call these highly tinkered-with creations native plants, but they are some of my favorites. They want no coddling, and thrive on the harsh conditions of my western yard wilderness. And the birds seem to agree with me.

I grabbed a forgotten pot from the underbrush and lined the bottom with green briar to keep the berries falling through the drain hole. The bushes didn’t get pruned last year, and many of the berries waved twelve feet high above me. No problem, the Catbird took everything above eight feet. We both ate our bate and I carried home a good show for Lin.

Life is full and the world is generous in Blueberry Summer.

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Hooded Warblers Provided the Soundtrack for the day’s walk.
Photo by Birdfreak—Creative Commons (BY–ND/2.0)

Okay, I’ll admit that I was reluctant from the git-go. It started with a report of a Golden Eagle at Little Black Water Park. There was a scramble among local birders to go look at the eagle. My attitude was that the bird was most likely an immature Bald Eagle. There have been Bald Eagles nesting at Little Black for at least five years now. Not that I doubt that a Golden Eagle might be roaming around in Mississippi—they do. Golden Eagles can and do show up anywhere they want to.
But if the bird was a Golden Eagle, it could be in Canada by the time we could get a trip organized to see it.

Then came the word that the Eagle had probably been a large Red-tailed Hawk. I thought that was the end of the matter.

Then Chuck announced that we would have a May field trip to Little Black Creek to look for the Golden Eagle. As I may have mentioned, I was reluctant. Mid-May in South Mississippi. It sounded hot, buggy, and humid. And, frankly, I’ve never found many birds at Little Black. I have found great crowds of people camping, fishing, and enjoying a very nice Water Park, and crowds and birds just don’t mix well. The week before the trip was planned Grayson Rayborn and I were almost eaten alive by deer flies down at Ansley, in Hancock County. And my reluctance turned into full-blown dread.

But I went. After all a bad birding trip is better than most other activities. I went and I was proven dead wrong. The day was cool and sunny, one of the most beautiful May days I can remember. We were a small group—Me, Chuck Gramling, Liz Wolfe, Larry Morgan, and Jean Jeffs traveled from Hattiesburg. At the trailhead to the nature trail we met, or rather we were found by two local experts, Rochelle and Sheila. Their guidance through the nature trail system proved invaluable.

And this was he birdiest nature trail that I have eve walked,. We took our time and had a very comfortable couple of hours, full of singing birds and Spring wild-flowers. We saw both Scarlet and Summer Tanagers within the first few hundred yards of the trail. Hooded Warblers, Pine Warblers, Common Yellowthroats, and three species of vireos were everywhere. We saw late-blooming Swamp Azaleas, nesting Prothonotary Warblers and Wood Ducks along a very nice beaver pond.
We ended up with nearly fifty bird species. This dreaded field trip turned out to be one of the highlights of a very nice Spring of birding for me.

Little Black is one of the Pat Harrison Waterway District Water Park. There are nine of these public parks scattered across the Pascagoula River Basin. While not the raw wilderness that the Pascagoula is famous for, these well-run parks are treasures for the thousands of South Mississippians who can get away to camp for a weekend, fish for an afternoon, or just walk around in the woods for the morning. You can learn more about the Pat Harrison Waterway District HERE.

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Here is the evidence that I do sometimes go birding—a Mississippi Gulf Coast Audubon Field Trip to Spence’s Woods and Logtown. Grayson Rayborn is not in the picture because he’s taking it!

There are great birding events this month along the Northern Gulf Coast. Here are some links.

Dauphin Island is one the premier birding spots in North America. Join the parade of birding clubs, tours, Big Year counters, and people who just like to look at birds. See you at Shell Mound!

The Wilson Ornithological Society and the Association of Field Ornithologist are having a Joint National Meeting in Mobile right at the peak of spring migration, what a coincidence!

The Pascagoula River Nature Festival will have events scattered throughout the month of April.

In Louisiana the Grand Isle Migratory Bird Festival will take place from April 18—20.

April 11—13 Mandeville’s Northlake Nature Center is hosting the Great Louisiana Birdfest.

Right across the river from the guys in the Logtown picutre lies Honey Island. Pines Woods Audubon Field Trip, March 22, 2008 Some innocent passer-by took this picture.

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Jean Guy’s fantastic photo of an American Robin: Some rights Reserved: Creative Commons

Today was a gem of Southern winter. Occasional clouds tumbled headlong across the sky, but the surface was cool and calm. Temperatures in the low sixties brought out even the most reluctant resident avian males, and by ten o’clock every tall perch held an insistent singer proclaiming his worthiness.
Lin and I both spent the day inside. It wasn’t the tragedy it seems on the face of it. We both got work done, I caught a bit of basketball on TV, and we savored the luxury of not having to leave Ronnalin and venture into the world of commerce. And right now, I’m listening to Van Morrison sing There’ll Be Days Like this. Not bad, not at all—of course, a cold drizzle outside wouldn’t have hurt my resolve to work.
As it was, I kept running outside to suck in just a little of this beautiful day. On my first foray I was dazzled by the sky. I thought to myself that high arc was the color a male Cerulean wants to be.
On my dash into the yard at ten o’clock —new and improved daylight savings time—I first noticed the robins. There was a faltering stream of American Robins heading north in small groups. By noon the stream had become a river of flocks, some of which probably held as many as fifty birds.
The Basketball game and hard drive housekeeping held my attention for a while, so I didn’t get back outside until the dogs demanded it around four. By then the Robins were in full flood and the mockingbirds, thrashers, and cardinals had all been cowed into silence as hundreds of birds passed overhead. In the back corner of the yard, a lone towhee shrieked his alarm call.
My dashes outside became more frequent after that. There were other birds moving, too. Chunks of starlings, Red-winged Blackbirds, and Cedar Waxwings were embedded in the slipstream of the larger flock. But the large majority of birds winging over were robins. We used to have such flocks fly by when my neighborhood was crowned with tall hardwoods, but it has been years and years since those days.
It was a mighty fine thing to see, again.
Lin came out with at six, just as the flow of birds suddenly stopped. Now there were hundreds of robins sitting in the remaining old water oaks and pecans in the neighborhood. As the birds jockeyed for the best roosting sites the afternoon sun burnished them bright as scarlet tanagers.
As the sun fell, so did the temperature. As I headed in I took one more look at the darkening sky and realized that I was wrong earlier. This was not a cerulean day, today was robin-egg blue.
Take care and keep an eye on the sky.

American Robin’s Nest by Martin Ujlaki. Some rights Reserved: Creative Commons

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My article about the Japanese pintail that was killed in North Mississippi was picked up by the Southeastern Currents, a publication of the National Fish & Wildlife Service, and published in their March 2008 edition. You can read it by clicking here.

If the link does not work for some reason, you can copy the link below and paste into your browser URL bar: http://www.fws.gov/southeast/SoutheasternCurrents/behind.html

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Tuesday, the eleventh, Lin and went to reprise our Gulf Coast Audubon Society PowerPoint presentation, Back Yards Are For The Birds, and the Great Backyard Bird Count for Main Street Methodist’s Prime Time Club. We had a blast on the Coast, but we did run short of time, and I forgot to plug this site and give my email address. I spent Tuesday morning deleting slides and adding a few slides that would refer to Hattiesburg. I finished my work. Lin swooped in and picked me up so that we could go early to set up. The church’s media expert, Jamie Gower quickly got us hooked into their system. I checked the presentation. Everything was perfect, and we had more than an hour before the show started to visit. I admit that I was just a bit worried right then about this “perfect” thing, but pushed it out of my mind and had a delicious pork tenderloin lunch which I finished without dribbling gravy all over my shirt—see, there’s that perfect thing again.
We had over seventy people show up and by the time we all got served, ate, and visited a proper while, we were running the slightest bit late. Not to worry, I knew that I had reduced the presentation. I figured I would run through the pretty pictures quickly and then have plenty of time for questions.
The Prime Timers did some housekeeping, we got introduced, and it was Showtime!
The presentation went well, although I realized that I should have spent less time fiddling with the presentation that morning and more time reading over my slides. Luckily Lin took up the slack, and we began to hit our duel presentation rhythm.
Then…

BOOM!

Thunder shook the meeting room and rain poured down. We charged onward, picking up the pace, but after another couple of volley’s I realized that I was talking to as many backs as faces people were gathering raincoats and umbrellas. I called a halt to the presentation at the first good spot. All in all it was a very good experience. Lin and I had fun visiting with people, and we ate some great food. But, for the second time around, I didn’t get to plugging my columns or my website.
So the next time you come to one of our presentations don’t be surprised to see a title banner that reads

RonnieBlackwell.com • Hattiesburg American • Sun Herald • RonnieBlackwell.com•

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Since the first opinion piece appeared in the Mississippi Press, the Richton Salt Dome proposal has started to attract attention from many quarters. I think the concept of diverting fifty MILLION gallons of water per day sort of makes you sit up and take notice. I’m sure that Atlanta could find something to do that water. The Sun Herald has had daily articles. The Hattiesburg American and Clarion Ledger have both picked up the pace of coverage. Red Orbit.com has been reprinting the Sun Herald stories. I hope that this coverage continues.

This new attention to the story has already brought out some interesting facts: If you’re feeling puzzled because you don’t remember the announcement of the environmental impact study, it may be because it was announced on the Thursday after Katrina hit. And, what about the public hearings for the the study? Did you just miss that announcement in the paper, like I did? Or maybe it was because that since our meeting places were damaged by Katrina the Pascagoula and Hattiesburg meetings were held in Jackson! But don’t feel bad—they didn’t bother telling the Jackson County board of supervisors, either. I don’t know if the Forrest County supervisors have heard anything to this day. Doesn’t this sound like the old days of dragline and dam it politics by the Corps of Engineers.

Friend, fellow Birding Committee member, and part time resident on the lower Pascagoula, Grayson Rayborn has some interesting takes on the issue which he shared in a recent email:

The recent Hattiesburg American article left some questions unanswered. As I remember it quote someone as saying the diversion of water only amounted to about 1/24 th of the Pascagoula average flow. I went to a web site and calculate using current flow numbers a diversion at fifty million per day of more than seven per cent of the flow at Merrill (the start of the Pascagoula where the Leaf and Chickasawhay join). Although 7% doesn’t seem like much it would seem to be enough to make fairly significant changes in the River. What happens if the drought worsens? The wetlands could be put at risk and the fifty million gallons a day could then be crucial. That’s a lot of water. WLOX news recently suggested that fifty thousand cars a day (as I remember their number) traveled US 90 in Biloxi. Each vehicle on that busy highway would need to tow a trailer carrying nineteen 55 gallon drums behind it to equal the flow that is proposed for diversion. And why was the idea of diverting the water from the Pascagoula instead of the Leaf considered such an advance? The Leaf, with the Chicasawhay, becomes the Pascagoula so the diversion would affect the lower watershed much the same whether it was taken from the Leaf or the Pascagoula. The only difference is that it would upset residents living near the salt dome less if it is taken from farther away.

This is not the first time that the Richton Salt Dome has been shopped around. In the early 80’s the dome was seriously considered as a nuclear waste repository. Back then a grass-roots group formed to oppose the project, the Perry County Citizens Against Nuclear Disposal, or PC-CAND. At the time oil or gas storage seemed to be a great alternative to nuclear waste. Now here we are, facing the reality of just how dirty this process can be. It seems that a salt dome untapped is just like a river un-dammed: Some people just can’t let either one be. One more cheerful note, back there in the last millennium, one of the selling points of the Richton Salt Dome’s development was the existence of another similar dome close by, the Cypress Creek Dome.

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My Thanksgiving column in the Hattiesburg American was about South Mississippi’s natural treasure, the Pascagoula River system. As everyone who knows me is of hearing, the Pascagoula is the largest, unimpeded (or nearly so) river system in North America. It is a place of wonder and history and of legend. We have this remarkable piece of wild river only because of the foresight and tenacity of a small group of people who in the early seventies were dedicated enough, smart enough, and stubborn enough to transform the shared dream of an old swamp rat and a privileged young hippy into reality. This story was masterfully told in Don Shueler’s Preserving the Pascagoula. If you haven’t read this book, do so. If you haven’t read it in a few years, do so again. Preserving the Pascagoula and Shueler’s masterful Handmade Wilderness are the very best of Mississippi conservation writing.Among the lessons this book delivers is a realistic view of the constant threat that our remaining scraps of nature face and will continue to face. In the mid-seventies Herman Murrah, Graham Wisner, Dave Morine, Avery Wood, and Bill Quisenberry literally saved the Pascagoula from being clear cut and divided into hundreds of small parcels.Ten years later the river system was under attack again, this time from dioxin leaching from the Leaf River pulp mill in Beaumont. This time the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and residents along the River joined the battle that led to a change in the company’s bleaching process. The river’s aquatic life slowly recovered.The nineties found many of us local conservationists opposing the building of a large dam here in Hattiesburg. During this fight between economic development and conservation we found that we had allies across the state and beyond. The lasting result of the struggle was a coalition of public and private groups that still studies, promotes, and watches over the river.Now, in a new century the river is in danger again. The Richton Salt Dome has been approved as a new oil reserve repository. This will entail hollowing out a huge cavern in the salt dome deep beneath the surface by forcing water into it. A lot of water—fifty million gallons of water per day for five years! And where will they get this water? Correct—from the Pascagoula River. And there is more bad news. After the water is injected into dome it will be piped across Perry, George, and Jackson Counties and across the Mississippi Sound, out past Horn Island to be dumped into the Pascagoula ship channel. This water will be up to 600 times the natural salinity of the Gulf and will kill every marine organism in its path. And this is what will happen if everything goes right—if there are no droughts, no pipeline breaks, no ship collisions.Get ready, people. It’s time to save the Pascagoula. Again.

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