The Creole Nature Trail, part of Louisiana

Louisiana

Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

's Outback, is an All-American Road comprising more than 180 miles (290 km) of highway including portions of Louisiana state highways 14, 82, 27, 384, and 385 in southwest Louisiana. The Creole Nature Trail was one of the first National Scenic Byway

National Scenic Byway

A National Scenic Byway is a road recognized by the United States Department of Transportation for its archeological, cultural, historic, natural, recreational, and/or scenic qualities. The program was established by Congress in 1991 to preserve and protect the nation's scenic but often...

s designated by the U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Along this distinctive series of highways a wide variety of world-famous wildlife including alligators, birds, butterflies, and fish are found.

The trail includes several National Wildlife Refuge

National Wildlife Refuge

National Wildlife Refuge is a designation for certain protected areas of the United States managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The National Wildlife Refuge System is the world's premiere system of public lands and waters set aside to conserve America's fish, wildlife and plants...

s and nature reserves: Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge

Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge

Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge is located approximately southeast of Lake Charles, Louisiana, in north central Cameron Parish. It contains that include fresh marsh, coastal prairie, and old rice fields...

, Lacassine National Wildlife Refuge

Lacassine National Wildlife Refuge

Lacassine National Wildlife Refuge is located in Cameron and Evangeline Parishes in southwestern Louisiana, was established in 1937 by Executive Order No. 7780 as "a refuge and breeding ground for migratory birds and other wildlife." The refuge is nearly in size, including leased from the Cameron...

, Sabine National Wildlife Refuge

Sabine National Wildlife Refuge

Sabine National Wildlife Refuge is a National Wildlife Refuge located in Cameron Parish in southwestern Louisiana. It is on Louisiana State Route 27, south of Hackberry and north of Holly Beach...

, Peveto Woods Bird & Butterfly Sanctuary in Johnson Bayou, and Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge near Grand Chenier

Grand Chenier, Louisiana

Grand Chenier is an unincorporated community in Cameron Parish, Louisiana.-References:...

. Most of the sights are located in Cameron

Cameron Parish, Louisiana

Cameron Parish is the parish with the most land area in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Cameron and as of 2010, the population was 6,839...

 and Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana

Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana

Calcasieu Parish[p] is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Lake Charles. As of 2010, the parish population was 192,768...

.

Following Hurricane Rita

Hurricane Rita

Hurricane Rita was the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded and the most intense tropical cyclone ever observed in the Gulf of Mexico. Rita caused $11.3 billion in damage on the U.S. Gulf Coast in September 2005...

 a number of the facilities especially in Sabine National Wildlife Refuge

Sabine National Wildlife Refuge

Sabine National Wildlife Refuge is a National Wildlife Refuge located in Cameron Parish in southwestern Louisiana. It is on Louisiana State Route 27, south of Hackberry and north of Holly Beach...

 are closed to the public and presently in a state of recovery.

Observable Bird Species	Spring	Summer	Fall	Winter
Common Loon	occasional		occasional	occasional
Pied-billed Grebe Pied-billed Grebe The Pied-billed Grebe is a species of the grebe family of water birds. Since the Atitlán Grebe, Podilymbus gigas, has become extinct, it is the sole extant member of the genus Podilymbus.-Description:...	common	uncommon	common	common
Eared Grebe	rare		rare	rare
Horned Grebe	rare		rare	rare
American White Pelican American White Pelican The American White Pelican is a large aquatic bird from the order Pelecaniformes. It breeds in interior North America, moving south and to the coasts, as far as Central America, in winter....	common	occasional	common	common
Brown Pelican Brown Pelican The Brown Pelican is the smallest of the eight species of pelican, although it is a large bird in nearly every other regard. It is in length, weighs from and has a wingspan from .-Range and habits:...	occasional	occasional	occasional	occasional
Magnificent Frigatebird Magnificent Frigatebird The Magnificent Frigatebird was sometimes previously known as Man O'War, reflecting its rakish lines, speed, and aerial piracy of other birds....		rare	rare
Anhinga Anhinga The Anhinga , sometimes called Snakebird, Darter, American Darter, or Water Turkey, is a water bird of the warmer parts of the Americas. The word "anhinga" comes from the Brazilian Tupi language and means devil bird or snake bird.It is a cormorant-like bird with an average body length of , a...	uncommon	uncommon	uncommon	occasional
Double-crested Cormorant Double-crested Cormorant The Double-crested Cormorant is a member of the cormorant family of seabirds. It occurs along inland waterways as well as in coastal areas, and is widely distributed across North America, from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska down to Florida and Mexico...	occasional	common	common
Neotropic Cormorant Neotropic Cormorant The Neotropic Cormorant or Olivaceous Cormorant is a medium-sized cormorant found throughout the American tropics and subtropics, from the middle Rio Grande and the Gulf and Californian coasts of the USA south through Mexico and Central America to southern South America. It also breeds on the...	abundant	abundant	abundant	abundant
American Bittern American Bittern The American Bittern is a wading bird of the heron family Ardeidae. New evidence has led the American Ornithologists' Union to move the heron family into the order Pelecaniformes .-Description:...	uncommon	rare	uncommon	uncommon
Least Bittern Least Bittern The Least Bittern is a small wading bird, the smallest heron found in the Americas.This bird's underparts and throat are white with light brown streaks. Their face and the sides of the neck are light brown; they have yellow eyes and a yellow bill. The adult male is glossy greenish black on the...	common	common	common	rare
Great Blue Heron Great Blue Heron The Great Blue Heron is a large wading bird in the heron family Ardeidae, common near the shores of open water and in wetlands over most of North and Central America as well as the West Indies and the Galápagos Islands. It is a rare vagrant to Europe, with records from Spain, the Azores and England...	common	common	common	common
Great Egret Great Egret The Great Egret , also known as the Great White Egret or Common Egret, White Heron, or Great White Heron, is a large, widely-distributed egret. Distributed across most of the tropical and warmer temperate regions of the world, in southern Europe it is rather localized...	common	common	common	common
Snowy Egret Snowy Egret The Snowy Egret is a small white heron. It is the American counterpart to the very similar Old World Little Egret, which has established a foothold in the Bahamas....	common	common	common	common
Reddish Egret Reddish Egret The Reddish Egret is a small heron. It is a resident breeder in Central America, The Bahamas, the Caribbean, the Gulf Coast of the United States, and Mexico. There is post-breeding dispersal to well north of the nesting range...	rare	rare	rare	rare
Little Blue Heron Little Blue Heron The Little Blue Heron, Egretta caerulea, is a small heron. It breeds from the Gulf states of the USA through Central America and the Caribbean south to Peru and Uruguay. It is a resident breeder in most of its range, but some northern breeders migrate to the southeastern USA or beyond in winter...	common	common	common	uncommon
Tricolored Heron Tricolored Heron The Tricolored Heron formerly known in North America as the Louisiana Heron, is a small heron. It is a resident breeder from the Gulf states of the USA and northern Mexico south through Central America and the Caribbean to central Brazil and Peru...	common	common	common	uncommon
Cattle Egret Cattle Egret The Cattle Egret is a cosmopolitan species of heron found in the tropics, subtropics and warm temperate zones. It is the only member of the monotypic genus Bubulcus, although some authorities regard its two subspecies as full species, the Western Cattle Egret and the Eastern Cattle Egret...	abundant	abundant	abundant	abundant
Green Heron Green Heron The Green Heron is a small heron of North and Central America. It was long considered conspecific with its sister species the Striated Heron , and together they were called "Green-backed Heron"...	abundant	abundant	common	occasional
Black-crowned Night Heron Black-crowned Night Heron The Black-crowned Night Heron commonly abbreviated to just Night Heron in Eurasia, is a medium-sized heron found throughout a large part of the world, except in the coldest regions and Australasia .-Description:Adults are...	common	common	common	uncommon
Yellow-crowned Night Heron Yellow-crowned Night Heron The Yellow-crowned Night Heron , also called the American Night Heron or squawk, is a fairly small heron, similar in appearance to the Black-crowned Night Heron...	common	common	occasional	rare
Glossy Ibis Glossy Ibis The Glossy Ibis is a wading bird in the ibis family Threskiornithidae.This is the most widespread ibis species, breeding in scattered sites in warm regions of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Atlantic and Caribbean region of the Americas...	occasional	occasional	occasional	occasional
White-faced Ibis White-faced Ibis The White-faced Ibis is a wading bird in the ibis family Threskiornithidae.This species breeds colonially in marshes, usually nesting in bushes or low trees. Its breeding range extends from the western USA south through Mexico, as well as from southeastern Brazil and southeastern Bolivia south to...	abundant	abundant	common	common
American White Ibis American White Ibis The American White Ibis is a species of wading bird in the ibis family Threskiornithidae. It occurs from the mid-Atlantic and Gulf coast of the United States south through most of the New World tropics...	abundant	abundant	common	common
Roseate Spoonbill Roseate Spoonbill The Roseate Spoonbill, Platalea ajaja, is a gregarious wading bird of the ibis and spoonbill family, Threskiornithidae...	common	common	uncommon	uncommon
Wood Stork Wood Stork The Wood Stork is a large American wading bird in the stork family Ciconiidae. It was formerly called the "Wood Ibis", though it is not really an ibis.-Appearance:...		occasional	occasional
Greater White-fronted Goose	common	rare	abundant	abundant
Ross's Goose Ross's Goose The Ross's Goose is a North American species of goose.The American Ornithologists' Union places this species and the other two "white" geese in the genus Chen rather than the more traditional "grey" goose genus Anser.This goose breeds in northern Canada, mainly in the Queen Maud Gulf Migratory...	rare		occasional	occasional
Snow Goose Snow Goose The Snow Goose , also known as the Blue Goose, is a North American species of goose. Its name derives from the typically white plumage. The genus of this bird is disputed...	abundant	rare	abundant	abundant
Canada Goose Canada Goose The Canada Goose is a wild goose belonging to the genus Branta, which is native to arctic and temperate regions of North America, having a black head and neck, white patches on the face, and a brownish-gray body....	occasional	occasional	occasional	occasional
Fulvous Whistling-Duck	common	uncommon	common	occasional
Black-bellied Whistling Duck Black-bellied Whistling Duck The Black-bellied Whistling Duck , formerly also called Black-bellied Tree Duck, is a whistling duck that breeds from the southernmost United States and tropical Central to south-central South America. In the USA, it can be found year-round in parts of southeast Texas, and seasonally in southeast...	uncommon	uncommon	occasional	rare
Wood Duck Wood Duck The Wood Duck or Carolina Duck is a species of duck found in North America. It is one of the most colourful of North American waterfowl.-Description:...	uncommon	uncommon	uncommon	uncommon
Mallard Mallard The Mallard , or Wild Duck , is a dabbling duck which breeds throughout the temperate and subtropical Americas, Europe, Asia, and North Africa, and has been introduced to New Zealand and Australia....	common	rare	abundant	abundant
American Black Duck American Black Duck The American Black Duck is a large dabbling duck. American Black Ducks are similar to Mallards in size, and resemble the female Mallard in coloration, although the Black Duck's plumage is darker...	rare		rare	rare
Mottled Duck Mottled Duck The Mottled Duck or Mottled Mallard is a medium-sized dabbling duck. It is intermediate in appearance between the female Mallard and the American Black Duck. It is closely related to those species, and is sometimes considered a subspecies of the former, but this is inappropriate .There are two...	common	common	common	common

External links

• Creole Nature Trail