Many times things that man makes become confused with naturally occurring things. I loved the passage in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer when Tom asked Huck as they lay on a sand bar looking up at the stars, “Do you think this just happened or did somebody make this?”  The marsh we are exploring is quite flat and most areas are made up of grasses and water. Cut grass and maiden cane stand tall waving in the breezes like a hula dancer’s skirt. A small change in elevation to this wetland allows woody trees and non marsh plants a home.

Today there are both man made ridges and natural ridges. When a canal is dredged out for an oil rig location, pipeline or for navigation the dug out material is called spoil when it is piled up on the side. This makes a man made ridge.  A natural ridge occurs when floodwater overflows rivers and bayous.  The heavy sediment builds a natural ridge. CC calls these ridges “animal highways!” We have seen deer, raccoon, and swamp rabbit trails.  The Marmande Ridge is a natural ridge we have hiked and picnicked on. The trees and plant life on top a ridge are as striking as mountains above a prairie.

Unlike natural ridges following natural bayous, man made canals are part of the coastal erosion problem because they are straight. The spoil banks can block the natural water movement and allow a direct flow of salt water where the snake like curves of a natural bayou slows down this intrusion. Mother nature designs it best.

The Wetland Wanderer is parked in an old oil canal off the Intracoastal Waterway west of Houma. Man made ridges surround our water home. On our first approach into this canal, we watched eight deer bound and leap along the ridge of this canal before splashing into the marsh. True to form that ridges help mammals living in a wet world.

As they bounded away we saw splashes of water and the chocolate brown organic marsh mud fly. Our deer, like most that live in swamps, marsh, or hardwood bottomland forest have hooves that spread out more than dry land deer. It is kind of like a snowshoe, a type of adaptation for this wet environment. There are a lot more deer along the bature of the Mississippi river.  I know that, so seeing one out in this mostly wet habitat is a little rarer, but adaptive mammals survive here and the ridges and spoil banks give them some dry ground.

Deer have a great sense of smell so getting a glimpse of one is a high point in a day of exploring! They eat twigs, grasses, fungi, and acorns and are excellent swimmers. Like me! Males, called a buck, grow antlers and get to be much larger than the female, called a doe. People hunt deer for their tasty meat. Deer are abundant and natural predators such as cougars, and wolves are gone or scarce. So I guess hunting them is not awful because overpopulation would occur without it. Just don’t tell any deer that I said that because I absolutely love this marvelous mammal!

From the marsh M.U.T.T…… ANNIE

PS:  I have a pretty little white triangle on my chest similar to a deer’s tail!