Leaving Grenada, Mississippi, this morning, we drove west toward the full moon and soon dropped onto the Mississippi River Delta. A mosaic of agricultural fields, bayous, oxbow lakes, catfish ponds, cypress swamps and islands of bottomland forest, this flat landscape was alive with waterfowl, wetland birds and grassland species.
Our first stop was at the Tallahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, most of which was closed due to flooding; fortunately, the boardwalk trail and observation tower offered access to a scenic cypress swamp. An even better boardwalk trail was at Sky Lake, to the southwest, a remnant channel of the Mississippi River; almost a third of a mile in length, the boardwalk took us past giant baldcypress trees, some of which are 1000 years old. Climbing from the Delta at Yazoo City, we continued southward to Flora where the Mississippi Petrified Forest is located; though it is privately owned and an entrance fee is charged, the trail loop was both pleasant and educational, taking visitors through a creek valley in which erosion has uncovered the petrified wood.
From that interesting preserve, we drove southeastward across the wooded hills of central Mississippi and will spend the next few nights on the Gulf Coast, just west of Gulfport. We plan to explore a number of coastal nature preserves in the coming days.
