Birds Downtown: New Orleans edition

I’ve been in New Orleans, where the birds downtown were mostly sparrows, pigeons and mockingbirds. I’m sure there were many more, hiding in the shadows or in places I just wasn’t looking. That’s always the important thing to remember: the fact that you haven’t seen something isn’t proof that it doesn’t exist.

The mockingbirds seemed to be everywhere, from Jackson Square in the French Quarter to the Lafayette cemetery out in the Garden District.

The treat on this trip, though, came when I made a rather ill-advised but successful attempt to make it from the entrance to City Park out to the shores of Lake Pontchartrain, on foot.*

The park was full of birds familiar and exotic: I was drawn to the edge of a pond by the site of a plain-old female duck standing in the sun, and then realized a big pelican was perched in a tree just a few feet form the shore. Canada geese and white ibises jockeyed for position when a group of girl scouts came bearing bread crumbs.

Over the course of my walk through the park I saw hawks and crows, egrets and herons. Photos of some of the water birds — as well as a few of those mockingbirds — below. Click any photo to enlarge.

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*Don’t try this if you’re wearing dress shoes. It’s far.