Photo Essay: Spring at Noxubee NWR

Spending time in nature provides many benefits—not only physical ones, but intellectual and emotional ones, as well.  Let's take a look at one of my favorite natural places to visit: Sam D. Hamilton Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge.

It’s a warm, sunny day in late March.  Looking down from Goose Overlook, I marvel at how the surface of Bluff Lake reflects the blue skies and cottony white cumulus clouds like a mirror.

A Northern Cardinal chirps out his song from the spiky branches of a fallen cypress tree.  Breeding season is in full swing, at least for some species.

A Great Egret hunts patiently in the shallows.  Its black legs and toes are long and spindly, facilitating wading.

Splash!  Lightning-quick reflexes are a must.

On the prowl…

 “What’re you lookin’ at?”

The main food source here seems to be minnows.  This egret probably had a lot of success today. 

A crossvine (Bignonia capreolata) trails up the trunk of a tree near the boardwalk.  Note the red-and-yellow trumpet-shaped flowers and the long, unlobed leaves.

On Woodpecker Trail, which loops through a section of pine woods, a few common blue violets (Viola sororia) can be seen near the path.  Woodpecker trail is also a good place to observe endangered Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, but I don’t hear or see any today.  Pileated, Red-bellied, and Downy Woodpeckers make themselves noticed, though.  Songbirds, including Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, Carolina Chickadees, and Yellow-throated, Yellow-rumped, and Pine Warblers, sing and flit around in the lower forest canopy.

The delicate white blossoms of a flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) stand out against the subdued grays and greens of the forest behind them.

I go back to Bluff Lake, this time to the Cypress Cove Boardwalk, and observe a large American alligator basking in the sun.  Yellow-throated and Yellow-rumped Warblers are vocal here, just as they were on Woodpecker Trail.  Red-winged Blackbirds add their bugling to the mix. 

The Yellow-throated Warblers may be vocal, but they’re not necessarily easy to photograph.  One moves down to the lower branches of a cypress, but is backlit at first.

I try photographing it from another angle.  Yellow-throated Warblers are actually fairly subdued in plumage—the sunny yellow of the throat is offset by the subtle slate-gray back, white wing bars, black mask, and black streaks against white flanks.

As the sun drops lower in the sky, I take a look at a large cottonmouth sunning itself on a log at the edge of Bluff Lake.  Although I’m glad to be a safe distance from this very venomous snake, I do not begrudge it the space it inhabits here at Noxubee.  It fills a niche in the ecosystem that is no less significant than those of the more easily-appreciated things in nature—e.g., birds, flowers, and trees. 

It’s getting late.  Bird-voiced treefrogs begin calling from the cypress swamp, their whistling songs mingling with the piping ones of spring peepers.  I know that, later in the season, the spring peepers will be silent, but green treefrogs, gray treefrogs, cricket frogs, and others will fill in the chorus.  I will return soon.