Annie Miller's Son's Swamp Tour

Jim leading us through the bayou

When I originally did research for a swamp tour, most of the ones I found were in the Houma area, which is relatively close to the Gulf of Mexico.  I booked a couple reservations a couple weeks ago with Annie Miller's Son's Swamp Tour.

Originally operated by Annie Miller, it now is run by her son Jim.  Mrs Miller would make a living hunting alligators when she was younger.  The skins were quite valuable and many would be sold to Europeans.  Her son now runs the swamp tours after working in the oil industry as an engineer.  Though the region is not wild like yesterday's location (the scenery mainly passed houses and there was far more garbage than alligators and turtles) Jim, our guide, provided us with some great insight to the region.

Great Blue Heron

Turtle on the watch

A bird, of which type I don't know

One of the few we saw today. A local lost their chocolate lab to one recently.

The bayou

Though not as wild, we did see quite a bit of wildlife.  We started in the bayou, passing through a residential area.  We had to duck our heads under a few bridges since the water was quite high.  We then cruised through a canal into the intercoastal waterway.  Along the way, we spotted a few small alligators and Jim was able to coax a medium sized one with some raw chicken.  On a few occasions we saw some Bald Eagles high up in the trees watching us.  Jim coaxed a couple into the water with some chicken.  I'm not a big fan of these practices, as it makes the alligators more aggressive, but Jim only feeds a couple of the alligators.  

Mommy and Daddy

The bird life here was quite incredible.  We saw many different types.  Along with the Bald Eagles, we saw some Blue Herons and some Egrets.  The yellow feet of the Egrets are pretty damn cool.  My favorite bird was a red winged bird, which I was unable to photograph.  Birds are just too quick sometimes.  

Louisiana loses land each year at an alarming rate.  Southeast Louisiana is losing at the greatest rate.  It loses approximately a football field an hour.  In a year it loses land about the size of Manhattan.  The cypress trees here are not very healthy since the water is infected with salt water from the Gulf of Mexico.  Jim pointed out land that used to be for cattle.

Cypress Knees.  They grow off the root sytem of the tree.

The Intercoastal Waterway

Formerly land for cattle grazing