Beautiful historic Washington, LA is located in St. Landry Parish, north of Opelousas. I have a friend whose family owns a nice chunk of undeveloped land in the gorgeous hilly countryside. The habitat includes agricultural fields bordered by second-growth forest, which leads down to a man-made pond surrounded by mature hardwood bottomland. I went up Friday night with my friend Jon Colletti, planning on camping for the night and returning the next afternoon. There were lots of things to see; dragonflies were abundant, snakes, frogs, birds. While we were setting up camp, a vehicle pulled up. It was Michael Barney and Travis Huval. Steven and Michael Barney are my friends whose family owns the property. Originally local, Michael now resides in Florida, and Steven in Broussard with his wife Nikki daughter Emma. Travis Huval hails from Sunset. All the aboved mentioned are admitted bug geeks, so naturally, their company is always welcome. Jon Colletti lives in Coteau with his wife Lea and son Beau-man.
Now that everyone has been formally introduced, we can focus on the sightings/findings of the weekend. Around the pond, dragonflies ruled the air: common whitetails (above) were most abundant, with fewer numbers of eastern pondhawk, blue dasher, common green darner & black saddlebags. I did notice one female Amanda's pennant. On the first night, we found a few water scorpions and one water measurer. That night, while patrolling the edge of the pond, I found a young mud snake consuming a bullfrog tadpole in the water. I wanted to capture the snake and get measurements, but before I could even consider the snake being disrupted from its meal, it submerged-meal and all.
After a while of walking around flipping cover, we found a nice western ribbon snake (picture at right). There were a few bronze and leopard frogs around the bayou that splits the property, but after walking for a couple of hours, we were ready to head back to camp. Around the pond, I caught a fiesty yellow-bellied watersnake followed shortly by a banded watersnake. Steven and Michael turned up a Stinkpot, so I was able to get some decent shots of this unusual turtle. (photo below)
The weekend certainly belonged to the bugs. Forest tent caterpillars (see photo below) dominated the scene. They were literally falling from the trees. They covered our tent (no, that's NOT why they're called tent caterpillars...), the Jeep and just about everywhere else you looked. For those who know these little furry guys, know well that they are harmless, unless you are tree leaves. Tent caterpillars can be quite damaging to a population of tree species. They begin to emerge when fresh, green leaves start to bud out. They have been known to eat willow, oak, maple, hawthorn, ligustrum and more! Anyway, along with the caterpillars were caterpillar hunters. These large, metallic green beetles were in no way as common as the prey they seeked, but that's the way a nicely balanced ecosystem works; fewer predators than prey. I did not take any photos of these beetles, but perhaps Steven did and I might obtain a picture from him for posting purposes.
Just as the night was coming to an end, I noticed (around 1:45 a.m.) that I was missing my one and only Jeep key! Had I let Jon use it? Nope, he didn't have it. After a frantic scamper around camp, I realized I was in serious trouble. I called Steven and Michael (who had left by now) and they very graciously turned around from north Lafayette to come back and help me look the key. We looked until 3:30 a.m., and decided to call it quits and resume the search the next morning....after sunrise. Now, I already felt bad that they had to turn around to help me look for the stupid thing the night before, but now I felt really bad because they had cancelled a trip to Kisatchie they had planned to help me again. Let's put a long story in the making to rest. Case in point, we never found the key. I had to have the Jeep towed out and brought to a dealership in Opelousas so that another key could be made.
I did make a new aquaintance over the weekend; Ed Harris (at right) of Washington. He and his family live just down the road from the Barney property, and according to Ed, his land is full of snakes. Now of course, when we walked over to his property with him, we didn't find a single snake. I do believe him though...there's lots of good looking habitat and he's invited us back any time we want! Some nice folks.
Well, in closing, I suppose the best thing I experienced this weekend was the great friendship that I have. I want to thank everyone who came out and help look for my damn key, including my wife Ellen and Steven's wife Nikki.
James
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