Wandering around Eagle Lake, Mississippi

Background

Eagle Lake is an oxbow lake northwest of Vicksburg. A short geology explanation: When a river flows through a wide alluvial valley (a geologic depression filled with riverine-deposited sediment), the river usually meanders, meaning it develops into tightly curved S-shaped channels. Often the channel almost curves back on itself. Over time, some of the curves are breached and the river rushes through the new opening to flow through the lower part of the S. The former bend of the river is abandoned, forming an oxbow lake. Eagle Lake, Lake Chicot, and Lake Washington are examples of oxbow lakes. These lakes become valuable habitat for fish and numerous bird species. Gradually (over hundreds of years) the lakes fill with organic debris and silt. The Mississippi valley between Cape Girardeau and the delta in the Gulf of Mexico shows evidence of hundreds of changes in these meanders as well as buried former channels throughout the alluvial valley (Fisk, 1944).

Eagle Lake, Mississippi. Map from ESRI ArcGIS online based on US Geological Survey topographic maps.

The town of Eagle Lake lies along the eastern shore and consists of mostly vacation and retirement homes, although some residents commute daily to Vicksburg for their jobs. I have not photographed in the town itself, but MS 465 has some interesting sights. (Warning, "pretty" pictures below.)

Some Sights near Town

Mt. Zion Church, near Laney Camp Road, Mississippi. Hasselblad, 50mm Distagon lens.

Lightning-struck tree at Mt. Zion Church, near Laney Camp Road, Mississippi.

North of Eagle Lake, MS 465 runs along the top of the levee. This is an unusual opportunity to drive along the levee top on a public road and watch wildlife in the ponds and hardwood bottomlands below. In many areas, levees are not open to the general public (they are restricted to hunters with permits, employees of levee boards, or the US Army Corps of Engineers). The Mount Zion Church is on a dirt road south of the levee, adjacent to where the Laney Camp Road joins 465.

This little church is east of 465 south of where the highway joins the levee. I do not know the name, but the modest little church had been deteriorating for at least 4 or 5 years. A few graves are located on the grounds south of the building.

In late December of 2017, I helped with the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count. The early morning light was misty and soft, perfect for tree pictures. These are on Kodak Panatomic-X film from a Hasselblad 501CM camera (tripod-mounted).

This is a store I photographed in 1997. It faced 465 but I cannot recall the exact location. This was a frame from Agfa Scala 200 black and white positive film (meaning black and white slides), taken with a Leica M3. The Scala scans really well. Of course, now I wish I had used more of it in the past.

Beaches and forest

Beach near Tara Wildlife Center with non-native rock in the foreground.

This is an example of a beach near Eagle Lake with access via a dirt path only during low water. The sand is carried naturally down the river from the central North American continent, but the rocks in the foreground were artificially placed. No rock of this size is carried by the Mississippi’s flow in this region.

Access like this to the river is relatively rare. Many visitors to the region are surprised that normally they can only see the river from high towns, like Vicksburg or Natchez, or from an occasional commercial loading facility. The reason is the placement of the flood-control levees. The main stem levees of the Mississippi River extend from Cape Girardeau in Missouri to the mouth of the river at the Gulf of Mexico. The levees are usually built some distance from the low water river channel, sometimes as much as one or two miles away (see Figure 1). The low terrain between the main channel and the levees is usually forested and subject to inundation whenever there is a high water event. The purpose of the forest is to provide friction to reduce the velocity of the water during high water. In effect, the forest helps protect the levees by preventing high currents from washing directly against the flanks of the earthen structures.

Example of pond and vegetation found in hardwood bottomland.

This is a pond in the hardwood bottomland that naturally forms on the river side of the levees. Note that up through the 1800s, much of the delta was hardwood bottomland, but the land was laboriously cleared and drained in the late 1800s and early 1900s to form the farmland that we see now. These bottomlands are characterized by being periodically inundated or saturated by surface or groundwater during the growing season. Common tree species in the area are adapted to survive, reach maturity, and reproduce in an environment where the soils within the root zone may be saturated or anaerobic (lacking oxygen) during part of the growing season (Clark and Benforado, 1980).

References

Clark, J.R., and Benforado, J. (Eds.), 1980. Wetlands of Bottomland Hardwood Forests: Proceedings of a Workshop on Bottomland Hardwood Forest Wetlands of the Southeastern United States. Developments in Agricultural and Managed-Forest Ecology, 11, Elsevier Science, Amsterdam, 401p.

Fisk, H.N., 1944. Geological investigation of the alluvial valley of the lower Mississippi River. U.S. Department of the Army, Mississippi River Commission, 78p. Online:  http://lmvmapping.erdc.usace.army.mil/index.htm  Accessed Sep. 13, 2018.

Camera notes

The square photographs were taken with a Hasselblad 501CM camera on Kodak Panatomic-X film. I used Zeiss 80mm CB and 50mm Distagon lenses. Praus Productions in Rochester, NY, developed the film in Xtol. The two rectangle frames are from a Fujifilm X-E1 digital camera.

End-of-year salutation

Dear Readers, this is the last article of 2018. Thank you for reading and occasionally commenting. If you have ideas on places to photograph or comments of any type, please feel free to forward them to kodachromeguy - at - gmail - dot - com. A prosperous 2019 to you all. Stay well and explore your world.