Bald Eagles on Louisiana Swamp Tours

The Bald Eagles have arrived to nest at Lake Martin, Louisiana, as they do every year in September. I saw them for the first time this past week, the last week of September. Exactly when they arrived, I am not sure because I haven't done very many tours this past month,

but usually they are here about mid-September, and begin the courtship ritual immediately.

It has been very interesting this past month with great weather, a good breeze, mostly mild temperatures and no one is coming to do swamp tours like we were doing all summer long, before the Hurricane Issac fiasco.

Now I call it that because just like Hurricane Katrina exactly seven years ago, we here in southwest Louisiana were on the good side of the storm and thus were mostly unaffected by the tidal surges and high winds in southeast Louisiana.

Here is a couple enjoying a sail in the mild temps and soft winds on Lake Martin just a few days after the Isaac storm... Although people were being rescued from roof tops less than 100 miles east from us, here in Lafayette, Louisiana, we were actually experiencing the exact opposite of the tidal surge to the east.

The reason it is opposite of the east side is because of the circular nature of a hurricane, as it apporaches land if you are on the west side of the storm(the safe side), you get a north wind, and it blows the water out of the swamp and marshland, and you experience below normal tides as you can see in the photo below where the water is usually about four to six feet deep on the beach here where this guy is standing about 200 miles west of the eye of the storm. Incidentally, this photo was taken on Constance Beach near the Texas state line, during the storm and the next day, the water was back up to normal again.

The bottomline regarding Louisiana swamp tours is: we here on the west side of the state, did not get any high winds, flooding, tidal surge or excessive rains, thus no actual collateral damage from the storm. Except that the tourists who watch the media generated worst case scenarios on the east side of the state, assume that ALL of south Louisiana is flood damaged and they stop coming to the southwest side even though we were mostly unaffected by the wind and high water that ravaged the east side of the state as seen in the photo below in La Place, Louisiana which is about 75 miles east of Lafayette.

So if you are looking to do a Louisiana swamp tour in October, we are open for business in the Lafayette, Breaux Bridge area and the water is normal here at Lake Martin.

I am Marcus de la Houssaye owner and operator of de la Houssaye's Swamp Tours at Lake Martin, Louisiana, and welcome to my wet and wild Louisiana!