Ronnie Blackwell

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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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.

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