In December 2013 I had visited Etang Laborde for the Les Cayes Christmas Bird Count. This month I had
the opportunity to return to the lake when my guest, aquatic ecologist Dr.
Donald Huggins, wanted to visit it for a possible bioassessment study. In May 2013 we had done a base-line
bioassessment of nearby Etang Lachaux, which continued to recede in the 2013
drought. Now we needed to see a lake
that still had water, fish, and birds.
The residents along the lake were very kind to us, telling us about the
history of the lake levels and giant fish and crayfish they had seen. Our botanist friend Dr. Craig Freeman
identified the aquatic plants from photos we had taken (see next post). The large flocks of ducks I saw during the
Christmas count had moved on, but still we saw over 19 species of birds.
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| People use these springs for drinking water. They are about 15 m from the lake shore. |
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| Drawing by a man who said he saw a fish almost 1 m long. |
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