Bird Watching: Mississippi marsh birds, 1 by f_chisolm

f_chisolm wrote:
MargaretK....most of the marsh is covered with shallow water with channels in between. There are only scattered small islands. Most of the vegatation comes from submerged roots. Some of the vegatation is even free floating opening and closing channels as the winds blow and change. The gallinules live their lifes on these types of vegatation. The lotus leaves that are pictured in one of the pics can grow from roots many feet deep. They search the undersides of these pads to find some of their food. By having large feet they can walk on top thereby being safer from predators than they would if they were in the water like ducks. Being on top of the pads also makes it easy for them to flip the edges up to look for food. I would imagine that some of the early ones may not have had large feet. They are gone now leaving only the ones with large feet. Yep; the gators got them.

Dellrose...if everyone could or would spend some quite time in the marsh they would see the beauty and the abundance of life there. Maybe then more people could see the importance of preserving our marshes. Everytime I go I see something new or different. It is ever changing yet stays the same.