Nature Adjusts

Photojournal of a Black Bayou Visit

Note: I have a notice that this post is too long for email, so I encourage you to click through and read the post online. Thanks much. - JED

I visited Black Bayou National Wildlife Reserve Monday evening, spending the last two hours of daylight in this peaceful and dynamic environment. I enjoyed seeing two deer crossing the road in front of me. I did not enjoy the fact that I wasn’t ready to take a photo at that moment. It’s mid-October and the temperatures are cool but not cold, breezy but not windy.

Blue Heron at a great distance, outpacing my camera, but still beautiful.

It’s hard to see the bayou at such low water levels. As I walked along what used to be the edges of water, I was reminded that nature adjusts. I’m sure this is not the first time the water has been this low, and if the world continues it won’t be the last time. It has just been a long dry spell. The signs of previous water levels are evident. Here are a few photos of areas that were submerged before our long hot summer.

If you look carefully you can see where the water stained the trees and how far down it is to the the bottom. This is not just in one place, but all along the edges of the bayou. Today, though, what caught my attention was that these are not barren places. After the waters have receded, nature adjusts by providing undergrowth where previously it could not thrive.

As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower…Isaiah 55:10

In the place where water once teemed with minnows, tadpoles, and other aquatic life forms, there are now vines, flowers, and grass growing to fill the void. Cypress knees rise up from the ground, exposed, reminding us that we used to only see the tips rising above the bayou. Flowers now fill large areas, bringing light instead of the glassy surface of the lake.

For months now the lilypads have covered the areas around the piers and made it difficult to see the alligators hovering just under the surface. They covered the surface almost completely. Although they have their own beauty, it will be nice to see the lake again. They are beginning to die off and perhaps before long they will sink into the water, offering themselves into the ecosystem of the bayou.

Nature adjusts not only to the changing of the seasons, but to the effects of those changes. Today there were hundreds of blackbirds flying around on the decaying lilypads, a bird feeder provided by the bayou. They must have really liked it because they were making a lot of noise while they enjoyed the feast.

I don’t know enough about the wildlife of the bayou to know how the other creatures are coping. Perhaps finding their way to the waters they need to survive. The deer, alligators, and the small woodland creatures like nutria, swamp rabbits, beavers, and even the water birds have all had to adjust with the rest of the bayou. There does not seem to be distress here, just adjusting to the changes in order to continue life. I think that’s a great lesson for all of us.

This Northern Flicker was at a distance against a bright sky, but he did manage to show me his read patch and to fluff up in the wind!

Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! - Luke 12:24

I’m glad I was present for sunset. There were no clouds today. I did notice that as Black Bayou life adjusts to changes, some things do not change. The setting sun reminded me that unless the Lord returns, in a few hours the sun will rise once again. The birds will sing, the butterflies will search for flora, and the snakes will try to find a warm place. Nature adjusts because some things always remain in place. Thank you, Lord, for that reminder … and for being the One thing in life that stays in place.

The Mighty One, God, the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to where it sets.- Psalm 50:1

Thanks for walking with me through another visit to Black Bayou. It’s the same place, but it changes and adjusts to the environment around it, so it is ever new. I’m sure next time I visit there will be something new to observe, like the Lord’s mercies, new every morning. God bless.