The Mouton Cove and Prairie Road site is for hard-core naturalists due to its difficult access and lack of amenities. Though these roads through privately-owned agricultural land are isolated and very lightly traveled, visiting birders should carefully select roadside shoulder areas to pull off to keep out of the way of working farm trucks and equipment.
The majority of this route runs through rice and crawfish ponds, with some sugar cane and a few overgrown/fallow fields. Shaggy roadside ditches and irrigation canals exist along the route, which add habitat for additional bird species, including rails, wrens, and sparrows–and where suitably brushy, selected warblers such as Orange-crowned, Common Yellowthroat, and Palm.
This aquacultural area provides outstanding foraging habitat for waterfowl, shorebirds, wading birds, other waterbirds (rails, gallinules, pelicans, gulls, terns), and raptors. Fence and power lines provide good perching/hunting substrates for flycatchers, swallows, and others.
Some of the more commonly encountered species include Wood Duck, Blue-winged Teal, Mottled Duck, Black-necked Stilt, Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Laughing Gull, Gull-billed and Forster's Terns, Neotropic Cormorant, Great Blue, Little Blue, Tricolored, and Green Herons, Great, Snowy, and Cattle Egrets, White and White-faced Ibises, Red-shouldered and Red-tailed Hawks, Barn Swallow, and Boat-tailed Grackle. The eBird hotspot checklist for this area totals 150 species.
Be forewarned that this isolated agricultural site is far from any amenities–even basic ones such as dedicated parking, road access, and restrooms. The nearest location for such amenities is at Palmetto Island State Park.
