Yellow Rails and Rice Festival

 Lifer #666 Yellow Rail, check!

The Yellow Rails & Rice Festival is the reason I visited Louisiana. Took me three days to arrive, and on Thursday, the day started with a field trip with other festival participants. The group traveled by caravan, which I lost, then found, then arrived & parked on the roadside.

The group of birders was given a bag of tangerines by the farmer of the little orchard where we sought a 'target' bird (seen below) a cooperative Couch's Kingbird.

So here I was, in the field, lifting my camera, discovering, I'd left my flash disk back in my hotel room.





In the course of the morning the group & I saw White-tailed Hawks, Eastern Meadowlarks, Inca and Ground Doves, the list went on and on. I saw as much, but photos? Only one I managed by digiscoping the Couch's Kingbird on someone else's spotting scope. *sigh*

The first thing I did when I got back to town in the late afternoon was buy a flash disk that now lives in my wallet. If I ever leave my camera disk home, there is now back-up. Ought to have learned that lesson back in Arizona, the last time I forgot to pull the disk from my laptop. DUH! 

On the second day of the festival I actually got over my usual hermit ways, and as the birders gathered in the morning, I asked if I could ride along with any other birder. *GASP* I know!

Red Crayfish

I buddied up with a v. nice lady birder and she drove us all morning as a caravan of birders checked out birds in the Louisiana countryside. Also saw lots of other wildlife, such as toads and crayfish. Friday morning turned hot & muggy. I went so absolutely red from the heat that people kept asking if I was alright. I was, but I looked as red & overheated as I felt. Could not believe it could be so hot in November - silly me, eh?




After Thursday and Friday morning's field trips, field tours assembled at the Thornton rice fields and the search for Yellow Rails was on!

The whole point of the festival is to view the rails and other birds that fly up out of the rice as the combines power through the annual harvest.

I took a ride in the cab of a big-arse rice combine. Here's a short clip of the cab ride.


Even more fun than a combine cab ride was riding the slip n' slide, mud splattering ATV too. The ATVs are right in the heart of the action, trailing the combines and allowing close looks at the birds hiding in the rice field.

view from an ATV

looking through a mud splattered ATV windshield

King Rail fleeing oncoming combine

Birds would burst out of the scruffy rice chaff as the combine trundled along. Sora, Yellow and King Rails, egrets & ibis either tried to put distance between themselves and the combine, or took advantage of it as a help in nabbing grasshoppers, snakes or frogs for din-din.

Yellow Rail 

It was the afternoon of day one I saw my lifer Yellow Rail, that flushed from the field and for whatever birdie reason, it landed right in the middle of the birders on the sidelines. It was immediately scooped up and given a massive photo opt. Not sure the bird appreciated it's 15 minutes of limelight. The bird banders were on hand to get measurements of the bird & other data.

My 'lifer' Yellow Rail got the once over from bird banders

Mist nets are on the right: set up for catching fleeing birds

Banding Station on the side-lines

King Rail, ready to have its stats recorded

However fun both rice field afternoons were, the heat & humidity sapped my energy. By the time I made it back home both days, I was wiped.

On Thursday I went to the evening Cajun feed down at the lake. The chow was excellent, as was the company. Still it was soured for me, when I spotted 3 flags at equal heights, flapping in the breeze: the American flag, the Louisiana flag and the Dixie confederate flag. Ought to not surprise me that after so many decades, the losing side's, forgotten until it was revived to intimidate people should still be flown. Even in Germany, people there would not allow the swastika Nazi flags to alongside the German national flag. Schwein Hund rot-Häise...

The Whitney Plantation - no mint julips here

Awesome tour guide at 1 of 3 memorials on Whitney Plantation grounds

It was 3 or 4 four years ago, I stumbled across the Whitney Plantation on-line. I soon knew I was going to visit the plantation, some day, some how. Today was that day. My drive from Baton Rouge to the Whitney was stunning. Not just for the scenery, but because the route was so far off the beaten track. There was a 'where the %&#@ has this stupid GPS brought me?' One sec on a highway, the next tic I was driving 'twixt rows of sugar cane that towered above the car. I stopped driving and looking up, saw a bedraggled Shrike setting up high on a wire. The bird looked like it knew the stuff that once went on down below amid the sugar cane.

I arrived at the Whitney, early for my tour group. Checking in, I received an ID tag. It showed one of the Whitney's child statutes, a little girl. On the back it read...

My ID tag

            Francis Doby                  Age 100  ... OUT IN DE CAMP, OUT YONDA IN DE
 CAMP  NEAR DA CANE FIELDS, DE OLE,

 OLE WOMEN TOO OLD TO WORK AND

 TOO OLD TO MAKE DE BABIES, DEY STAY

 AN MIND DE YOUNG CHILENS SO DAT

 DE MA KIN ALL WORK IN DE FIELDS AND

 DEY FEED DAM AN ALL SO WHEN DE MA

 COME BACK ALL DEY GOT TO DO IS TO

 PUSH 'EM IN DE BED. ALL OF DEM IN DE

 SAME BED.

The quote has to be from the Slave Narratives when -during the depression - the memories of the formerly enslaved were set to paper for prosperity. I felt like the living memory of 100 year old Ms Doby. I noticed all tour participants wore a different ID tag, each representing another voice from America's gawdawful & not really all that distant past. The last enslaved man of the era died in 1971.

Had to put my brain on 'simmer' for this day's post. So much information from our excellent guide, I mean, if there was an Oscar for tour leaders, he'd have several. Decided to cut to the chase & if y'all want to know more, take the tour on your own - you'll be both edified & stunned by a wealth of history you will hear.

The tour began a short way from the visitor center, at the Antioch Baptist Church. This old African American church was moved to the Whitney when it was replaced - by a new church in Lutcher Louisiana.

The Antioch Baptist Church

Watched a short presentation inside the Antioch

Throught the church there are statues of small children. Below is their story in brief.

The Children of Whitney, a series of sculptures by Ohio-based artist Woodrow Nash,
represent these former slaves as they were at the time of emancipation: children. Whitney  presents the stories of these children as told in their own words. The visitors are introduced to the lives of the enslaved workers based on the recollections of those who endured, and  who shared the stories of their lives as children in slavery.

silent witnesses in the Antioch

One can argue, all the formerly enslaved children
 were broken as are we, their descendants

The tour group watched a short presentation in the church, and afterwards moved on to the first of three areas dedicated to the formerly enslaved of Louisiana. A horrifying fact of Louisiana's sugar cane plantations is that the lifespan of its slaves was 7 years. That's how long an enslaved individual survived on average, from arrival to death by extremely difficult and dangerous work.

The Wall of Honor

The wall has reflects for all Americans

We had time to read as many of the dedications and names as we pleased, as well as peppering the guide with questions. Then we headed to the second memorial area where there were even more dedications and remembrances. It was startling to think of all the slaves that at one time existed just in Louisiana alone.

Allees Gwendolyn Midlo Hall

Far off in the field

The plantation replaced dead slaves the way today we toss used electronics in the trash and just buy a new one.

Alligator ridden swamp still holds 
bones of the formerly enslaved

Our guide made a strong point that you can't treat another 'human being' with such callousness. One had to be taught from an early age to view the enslaved as less than human. 

The third memorial area was the most sobering. Children born on the plantation were incidental to its operation so many died, or rather were allowed to die from starvation or enforced neglect.

The Field of Angels

The Field of Angels is dedicated to the 2,200 who, due to their treatment as expendables, died before their third birthdays. The centerpiece statue is of an African Angel, carrying off one such baby to heaven.

The plantation originally had 22 slave cabins

The Whitney children watch us as we toured...

The Blacksmith

The cook house where all plantation meals were prepared

 The cookhouse was just steps away from the Plantation mansion, separate so as to not heat up the living quarters. Separate also in case the cooking fires set the cook house ablaise, everything wouldn't burn down.

Inside the cook house with prepared food on the table

The plantation 'big house' 

 The big house's upper story has sleeping quarters. The shuttered windows at the second story are part of a breezeway.

The second floor breezeway

Stairs at the end of the breezeway

This picture was taken in the upstairs bedroom where the Mistress of the manor lived. The statue represents a child whose job it was to run errands for the lady of the house.

Here is the child statue again, this time the photo was taken using flash. The picture looks rather startling as the empty hollow eyes seem to have jumped to life.

The statues have empty eyes to represent the lack of hope for children born into slavery.

View from the upper floor of the Plantation mansion

View from the back garden walkway

The Whitney Plantation is duplicitous, while being simultaneously beautiful and terrifying. It is fascinating in its hundreds of stories and easily dismissable by the cowardly - at least in my opinion.

If our guide had one lesson he wanted us all to know by tour's end, it was that slavery hasn't gone anywhere. It's just adapting to new models, such as the American prison system. Yeah. A brother told it like it is.

Here is a video that fills in a little more about the Whitney Plantation.

All Hallow's Eve at the Haunted Myrtles Plantation

Myrtles Plantation

Since I was 'in the neighborhood' I drove over to St. Francisville, Louisiana. I'd decided to spend my All Hallow's Eve at the famous Myrtles Plantation. The plantation is now mostly a lovely inn where honeymooners and other guests can stay in genuine antebellum accommodations. I've heard tell of the plantation while rotting my brain watching ghost chasing & otherwise haunt riddled TV fare. Arriving at the plantation I was a good hour early for my 6PM pre-paid tour time. I decided to take a short stroll on the grounds. As I've been cursed by a witch with laziness, it was quite a short walk.

Autumn Color on the walkways

As I walked up the cobbled lane towards the 'big house' a pair of twee little girls stared at me, eyes wide as saucers. "Happy Halloween', I cheerily called to them. Just then, I recollected that atop my noggin I wore devil's horns, procured at the Renaissance Faire years ago. No wonder their eyes bugged - guess the tots had never met a real 'she-devil' before. Interesting fact, all day, with me trepsing all over central eastern Louisiana and I saw not a single person - adult or child - in Halloween garb. In my California home town you only have to step outside and shake a dead black cat to be overwhelmed by your fellow citizens in full on Pirates of the Caribbean or Star Wars garb. I'd have thought Louisiana, with its voodoo history would have overridden its bible belt sensibilities. Seems to be quite the opposite. No Halloween shenanigans here.

Ghost of Chloe...?

Shortly thereafter I froze in my tracks as I espied a ghostly white figure, floating in the air - OHMYGOD, is that the ghost of Chloe? It wasn't even dark yet.... um, no - I concluded it was a white umbrella.

Nevermind.


Didn't take me long to wander over to the Plantation's general store/gift shop. There I checked in for my tour time, and then greedily eyed all the shop's merchandise. Had to use all the behavior modification skills in my arsenal to evade buying handspun Shetland Wool, which would only end up in my spare bedroom, with the bales of other 'pedigree' wools, hand spun & unspun. I did buy a tiny flask of Praline liqueur/spirits... for later...

For the knitting dilettantes such as myself

I suspect I will be cremated in a hand spun, hand knit casket. I should get to work on that as soon as I return home.

Looking past corn shucks is the courtyard &
door to the gift shop (Valhalla for 'moi')

At six sharp, the tour began and everyone gathered on the porch of the second plantation building, unseen to the right in the photo above.

The notorious haunted mirror has a sort of T-rex jaws
with a few ribs on it... that's what I see anyway...

Our tour guide explained we would only be allowed to photograph a restricted area of the inside of the building. Not because of fear we would photograph the plantation ghosts, scare ourselves and wet the beautiful original flooring throughout the building, but because the effing insurance company wouldn't insure the plantation & it's inn & rooms otherwise. Bugger the insurance mongers, eh?

The mirror macabre

Entering the building, we received a talk on the history of the plantation mansion, and were told, to our delight, we could photograph in this entrance way to our hearts content. Several took photos of a mirror, from which it seemed impossible, despite professional cleaning, to remove stains, of dripping... blood.

OH CRAP! A GHOST... erm... no, that's actually one of the inn's guests shooting up the stair well to his room. Damn, I need to get a grip.

patriotic mirror

Here's a brief of the plantation's most notorious, and frankly, innocent-ish ghost. The plantation has had many owners over the centuries and one of them had carnal feelings for a v. young enslaved girl on another plantation. He bought her, so she might baby sit his children & provide him with a mistress.

The enslaved girl was named Chloe. She was a nosey body in that she listened through closed doors when the master had meetings with important male type guests. Thus nosey Chloe fell out of favor with her master, and even lost credence with the other plantation slaves.

Foyer chandelier

But young Chloe had a cunning scheme (cue Black Adder music here) in which - with an oleander laced birthday cake no less - she poisoned the master's little children. She wanted to nurse the stricken children back to health & thus, regain the master's good graces. Her scheme failed when the kiddies died. Poor misguided Chloe was hung by the Mississippi River, her lifeless body fung into its waters. 

But the cat came back - as a ghost. The children came back too, perhaps seeking more of that yummy  oleander cake.

Another Ghost in the haunted mirror... . nooo... that's me. Sorry. 

 Did I see any ghosts? Nope. All of us in the group were taken into the bedroom of the master & mistress & there, on the crimson bedspread we all saw the tiny handprints of the plantation's ghost children. I felt rather uncommitted to the idea the prints were ghostly, I mean there were a couple of deep indentations but I figure they could have been placed there before we entered the room. One appeared while the guide spoke to us - telling us spooky plantation tale after spooky plantation tale - but um... maybe we just hadn't noticed it before he pointed it out?

The AWESOME haunted bedroom and it's creepy bedspread - not my photo

The tour took about an hour, during which the guide gave great details on the antebellum aspects of the building. We toured the gentleman's smoking room, the dining room and other rooms. Thoroughly enjoyed the the tour. 

The Plantation dining room - not my photo

The haunted stairwell 

This is the famous haunted stairwell. This photo faces the entrance. One of the plantation owners was shot, then famously died on the 17th step.

At the end of the entryway, stands this piano, said to play all on its own, without the benefit of anyone - alive - actually setting fingers to keys. Of course as with any well behaved haunted instrument, it ceases to play the second anyone enters the room. Good piano. Here's a piano biscuit.


During the last bit of the tour, we were told the story of how the plantation got its history of haunting started. It began when a modern day owner bought the plantation, planning to make it into a bed & breakfast. She was on the property by herself one day, photographing it with the goal of providing the photos to an insurance company to insure her property & business. She'd been told to provide photos with no one shown in them. After turning in the photos, the insurance people insisted she retake one of the photos, as clearly, the woman wasn't alone on the property that day. WHAT THE...!

Our guide showed us the infamous photo. The inset to the left shows a close up of the alleged, transparent Chloe. Professional National Geographic photographers examined the photo and negative and said they could not find any trickery in the photo. They also pointed out that over the porch on the right, there appear to be two small children crouching. You know... ghost children.

The photo that started it all. The house on the right is the one we toured. 

It is said Civil War soldiers march around porches and bricked walkways.

What fun to get to visit the haunted & hallowed grounds of the Myrtles Plantation, known to be haunted by at least a dozen spectors. How many did I see? Thank heavens, none! Whew. Hope my luck continues to hold out. Below are two episodes from the annals of Ghost Adventures, if you're hankering for a little seriously spooky viewing.