McCoy's Pascagoula River Tours

October 8, 2016

In early Autumn, the bald cypress (on the right) turn tints of orange in the swamps of the Pascagoula River.

Every year for the last three years, I have had the opportunity to visit the Pascagoula River Audubon Center (PRAC) in Mississippi with the Ecology class at Pensacola Christian College. It is an opportunity I cannot pass up.

The Center itself is a beautiful facility. The old building was very rustic, but definitely in need of renovations. So when PRAC moved to a new location, a brand new building was constructed with beautiful displays of Pascagoula fish, reptiles, and amphibians. The Center is a great, educational place to start any outdoor adventure but for a complete Pascagoula experience you must take one of the boat tours of the river. There are three kinds of people who need to take a tour of the river: bird watchers, nature and wildlife lovers, and everyone else. Because everyone should love nature and wildlife.

A great egret stands nobly on the shore of an oxbow lake. This bird had learned that passing boats washed minnows up onto the muddy shores--easy pickings for the egret--so it sometimes followed boats, eagerly anticipating its next meal.

For the 2016 tour, we piled into Captain Benny McCoy's swamp boat and puttered out into the marsh. As Captain McCoy explained, the brackish marsh is a very different place than the swamp. The marsh is dominated by tall leaved monocots like wild rice and needle rush; the swamp has trees (mostly bald cypress) and is far enough up the river to avoid saltwater infusion.

If you are as lucky as we were, you'll see herons, egrets, ospreys, king fishers, rails, and many more fabulous wetland birds. Captain McCoy knows exactly where to find alligator nests and occasionally, we see alligators (I've seen them twice in the three times I've gone).

A juvenile alligator watches us calmly from the waters near the launch point of Captain McCoy's boat.

Captain McCoy explained that this little 'gator may be a rescue-and-release. Because there are so many alligators in Florida, only small ones are released if they must be relocated. Large adults must be killed or placed in special housing facilities like Alligator Alley.

When you fulfill your destiny aboard Captain McCoy's rig, let me know about your highlights in the comments below.