Louisiana Swamp Tour -- Day 3

We had a beautiful day for our foray into the Louisiana swamp.  There were absolutely no bugs and the weather was perfect!  We had chosen the southern part of our tour first hoping that summer would not be in full swing yet.  You can see the bright blue sky reflected in the water.

 Just another view of the swamp.

Yet another view of the swamp.

When we got to the shack where we were to meet with the tour operators, we discovered a large group of feral cats being fed by a local
woman who came by each day with leftovers from her pizza shop as well as dry cat food.  This raccoon liked to join the gang.

He was a beautiful healthy animal!!

A little green heron greeted us at the dock although I suspect food was of more  interest!

Here is Joan holding the giant Water Lily pad!

This was truly peculiar.  This is a drop of water on the pad.  Our guide put lots of water on the pad and it literally rolled off not dampening the pad at all.  Doesn't it look strange -- just plain old water but it looks like a solid here!

This is a closeup of one of the Water Lilies.  You can see how big it is as it is in front of Vicki who was modelling it over her left ear.

There were lots of different birds, most of which I did get a picture.  Basically they were all your usual egrets and herons!  This is of course a Great Egret.

A Great Blue Heron is stalking his prey.

A Little Blue Heron was standing among the lily pads.  The water was very shallow.

There were a couple of one of my favorites -- Wood Ducks swimming around.

Of course there were Snowy Egrets as well. There was a nest with the eggs from a Fulvous Whistling Duck but somehow I have lost the picture.  I didn't manage to get a picture of the Whistling Ducks either but they were there.

 There were lots and lots of Alligators.  This was probably the biggest at about 16 feet.  His head is all green from the algae in the water.

After our tour, we got on the road again and headed through Louisiana and on to Greenville, Texas just northeast of Dallas, again taking the scenic route as much as possible.