The Champagne Cajun Swamp Tour on Lake Martin in Louisiana taught us so much about swamps!
“Swamp" literally means "flooded forest." It's different from a marsh, which is made up of tall grass and mud. It's also different from a bayou, which is a slowly flowing river. In a swamp, the water is clean from the hydrilla plant (which filters the water). There are trees that grow out of the water, which are often bald cypress trees and tupelo gum trees, which repel mosquitoes, so (contrary to popular belief) you will never get bitten by a mosquito in a true swamp. When a bald cypress tree gets older, a hole will start to form near its trunk. This is not a sign of sickness--Mother Nature creates this purposefully so that mammals will have a place to stay during hurricanes. They can also live to be hundreds or thousands of years old. Alligators, not crocodiles, live in the fresh water of the swamps. Swamps are one of the cleanest environments in nature. Everything is filtered, and nothing is extra. Even the "rotting" tree trunks are home to woodpecker food. And woodpeckers are vital to the ecosystem as well, because the wood ducks follow into abandoned woodpecker nests to make their own homes. And more things follow them. It's all the great cycle of life. As our tour guide put it, "Mother Nature never does nothing extra, never makes no mistakes, and surely doesn't have no bad intentions.
