Date of Visit: 6-7 January 2024
Lake Village, AR
Day 1 ~ 45º and cloudy; Day 2 ~ 55º bright sun
Sitting in the far southeastern corner of the state, I made Lake Chicot State Park my first official sabbatical park. Sadly, all the cabins were booked, but a good friend put me up in Greenville, MS (thank you, friend!) and I got to traverse the beautiful, “new” suspension bridge on highway 82. During my sabbatical (spring semester) I will travel to at least 22 parks, and I selected all of the parks in the southern half of the state for these trips. I wish I could visit all of them in March and April for the prime weather and prime plants, but alas, some have to be visited “off season.” Lake Chicot does not disappoint, no matter the weather. In fact, it turns out the my visit coincided with a lot of migratory bird activity, as the park falls directly in the path of the Mississippi flyway. I found so much beauty here and so much great information about landforms and history that I’ve already drafted the poem.
On arrival, I spent time in the visitor center, learning that Lake Chicot takes the prize of being the largest, natural oxbow lake in North America. The lake measures over 20 miles from tip to tip. In this picture, you’ll see a great aerial shot that demonstrates how/where natural oxbow lakes form off the natural meanders of rivers. Once upon a time (600 years ago), the crescent labeled “Oxbow Lake” (Lake Chicot) in the map was actually the main river channel. Check out the USGS for how the science works. The name of this park focuses on the lake, but the influence of the Mississippi River can’t be underestimated. In this picture, you can also see the influence of the levee system that separates the farmlands and towns from the river’s main channel (and major flooding). I loved finding a new word for me, “batture,” from the French meaning “to beat,” as in “where the river beats the land” (yay, metaphors!). And I loved the fact that having not been developed, the batture remains quite wild.
On the first day of my trip, I signed up for a levee tour. Traveling in the winter meant I was the lone participant and had the park interpreter all to myself for an hour-long drive along the levee between the lake and the river. The tour departed late in the day to capitalize on birdwatching and we saw quite a few. Great blue herons, great egrets, cormorants, both snow and Canada geese, mallards, buffleheads (a new duck for me!), hawks that I couldn’t specify, a bald eagle soaring, and some of my favorite fellows — 3 different small flocks of wild turkeys. I adore how they run; they look just like some of the running dinosaurs in Jurassic Park! I use my iPhone to take these pictures, so I can’t share any of the bird sightings. However, the end of the tour involved driving down to the actual Mississippi River, just upriver from the Greenville Bridge. Given the record droughts we’ve been having both here and up north, the low, low water level did not surprise me. Still, it was disheartening to see so many feet of riverbank exposed. If you look closely in the photo, in the mid-upper left, you’ll see some grey stone above the rest of the darker bank. That’s the usual waterline. I was standing on the first few feet of river bottom when I took the picture.
On day two, the sun shined hard and I returned to the park to focus on the lake. I attended a park talk demonstrating the formation of oxbow lakes with a clay and sand model. This time I was not alone. The family that joined me showed a lot of patience for my questions! After the demonstration, we all walked down to see the lake and learn more about it, especially about the cypress trees and their knobby knees. Again, no picture of the lake itself because my phone camera doesn’t suffice. But, the drought provided me with access to areas normally underwater here as well and I took a few more than one picture of the exposed cypress roots and knees. In this picture, most of these would normally be underwater up to the bank line about midway through the picture horizontally. Natural architecture wows me every time. While poking around the lake on my own, I added to my birding with red-bellied woodpeckers, Carolina wrens, a northern flicker, and a little group of kinglets. All in all, I couldn’t have been happier with this trip!
Next up: Lower White River Museum State Park
