Rain Crows

KEDM Public Radio | By Kelby Ouchley

Published September 4, 2017 at 9:00 AM EDT

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K. Ouchley

One definition of the word 'lurk' is to lie in wait in a place of concealment. Among those birds that spend time along Louisiana bayous, one species in particular can be said to exhibit this behavior as a matter of habit. Rain crows, often heard but less often seen, are bona fide lurkers as they perch with hunched shoulders that belie a long, graceful neck in a pose that for all the world appears to me an expression of guilt.

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Kelby Ouchley

Kelby was a biologist and manager of National Wildlife Refuges for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for more than 30 years. He has worked with alligators in gulf coast marshes and Canada geese on Hudson Bay tundra. His most recent project was working with his brother Keith of the Louisiana Nature Conservancy on the largest floodplain restoration project in the Mississippi River Basin at the Mollicy Unit of the Upper Ouachita National Wildlife Refuge, reconnecting twenty-five square miles of former floodplain forest back to the Ouachita River.

See stories by Kelby Ouchley