Louisiana Swamp Tours: Louisiana Wildlife Photo Safaris

I have been guiding in the swamps of Louisiana all my life, and raised my children here.

If you like the TV shows presently so popular, I am the original!

And I ain't afraid to get out and get it done with the big boys...

Here is a photo of me from 25 years ago...

Today, I am still the wild man in the swamp just getting to be near 60 years old...

I am contrary to most other tour guides who are commercialized and are nothing short of a tourist trap.

Although most photo safari guides build permanent or portable photo blinds to conceal themselves from the birds, I have a better system. I develop a relationship of trust and mutual respect slowly over time between me and the wild birds, and eventually I can bring my swamp tour guests into the rookery at Lake Martin or anywhere and get very close allowing bird watching and photo opportunities, without the birds being disturbed or even flying away, simply because the birds over time have come to know me as a non-threatening movable fixture of the landscape that comes and goes and causes no one harm.

Because some birds return to the place they were hatched at to nest the following year, some of these nesting birds have known me their whole life and from the time they hatched from the egg have never witnessed me cause any harm to another bird as I come and go on a daily basis and this allows the birds to accept me as a normal element of their nesting environment, and act natural and engage in normal nesting activities in close proximity to my boat in full view of my passengers.

and so I take people where others cannot go..

I have lived a life most people only dream of, part of which was on a houseboat in the Atchafalaya basin where a Great Egret would visit me every morning when it wasn’t nesting season. So the bird was most likely a female or else a male who traveled with his mate to nest elsewhere and then returned after.

But this bird taught me that if I was co-operative and made no quick movements that it would over time get so close to me and with my camera on a tripod I did not even need the long lens to pull it in photographically because the bird was standing 10 feet away from me as I drank my morning coffee on the wharf next to my houseboat every morning.

When I built my houseboat and moved to the swamp, they said I couldn't do that...

But, I did it anyway...

and I did it my way...

and when they said my boat was too small to succeed doing swamp tours, I succeeded anyway!

I could not do what I do without first having the birds best interests first in line, and as a swamp tour guide in the rookery investing a great deal of personal time and commercial expense in building these unique relationships with the wild birds, I can also serve as eyes and ears for their protection.