I’m told that the park has alligators. Thankfully, the gators don’t visit the campsites, unlike some other parks in Louisiana. Today, my goal was to find out where the gators hang out, and hopefully, see one.

I started my search by going to the park office and talking with the ranger about locations to search. The ranger said to check out the marina area especially the area to the right of the entrance gates and the stream next to the Poverty Point Golf Course.

So off I went with scope in hand. Both locations were too far to walk. The marina was my first stop, and it turns out my only stop, which was about 3 miles up the road.

I missed taking pictures of the area, but I will do that tomorrow and create a post.

The area to the right of the marina entrance had 4 people fishing. I started scoping and found at least 1 bird that is not on the catalog of bird sightings.

The Wilson Snipe was about the size of a robin with a very long beak. The snipe kept poking the beak in the ground and sucking up bugs and worms. The only reason I saw the snipe was because of the movement. The camouflage feathers really blended in with the ground. The video has 4 birds. Can you find them all?

The area also had common American Coots, red eared turtles and a white egret. I did not take a picture of the egret. You might have zoom in to see all the turtles and the red ears. In total, there are 7 turtles in the picture. If you can’t see all 7, you need to zoom into the left side of the picture. A stick is partially covering the face.

I started walking towards the marina store and saw 2 beautiful pelicans that didn’t appear to be too afraid of me. They were soo close that I had to set the scope at 25x, which is the lowest zoom. I think the pictures turned out great!

The marina store was pretty cool. It had a large variety of fishing items, multiple piers, boat storage, and a mini museum with animal pelts and stuffed animals from the area. I plan on going back tomorrow with John.

The lady in the store told me a few more place to look for alligators. Also, she saw a 4-foot alligator where I originally looked this morning. She then pointed out a few birds that were in the swimming area. So, off I went.

I saw another bird that wasn’t in our bird sighting list. Even though I didn’t see alligators, I did see birds not on our list that John hasn’t seen yet 🙂

Multiple Forester’s Tern were on poles and buoys. The terns look similar to a sea gull but about half the size. When I was watching, the sea gulls were being bullies and forcing the terns off the poles and buoys.

The bully sea gull 🙂

Today was one of those days where I forgot to take pictures of the area (too excited, hoping to see alligators) and selfies. I decided to use a selfie that I took earlier in the month in Texas. I thought the picture was fitting since my scope was in the shot.