Jungle Gardens of Avery Island

After our wonderful tour of the Tabasco factory we headed out to the Jungle Gardens.  There is an additional charge to tour the gardens.

We had already purchased our tickets but still needed to stop at the gift shop for a map.

Jungle Gardens Gift Shop 

(a different gift shop from the Tabasco give shop).

Jungle Gardens was created by Edward ‘Ned” McIlhenny, son of the Tabasco sauce inventor, E. McIlhenny.  He was born in 1872.

There are plenty of beautiful trees on the drive.

You can walk or drive the 3-mile loop.

We choose to drive, and Mark had downloaded an audio tour on his phone that we were able to play through our radio.

In the 1920’s, Ned McIlhenny converted his private Avery Island estate into Jungle Gardens and decorated it with exotic botanical specimens from around the world.  It was opened to the public in 1935 and is now 170 acres.

These man-made lagoons were planned after the water gardens of Venice. The first animals we noted were American Alligators. Lots and lots of alligators!

Big Alligator

Little Alligator

There were wading birds as well. We watched this Snowy Egret catch and eat a crayfish. Delicious!

Snowy Egret with Crayfish

This 300-year-old live oak tree is named for Grover Cleveland.  He visited here around 1891.

Cleveland Oak

The Buddha was a gift to McIlhenny in 1936.  It’s over 900 years old.

The Palm garden was once an old mining sand pit.  There is a collection of palms from all over the world.

This famous rookery began as a bird colony that was founded by Mr. Ned in the 1890s.

"Alarmed by local plume hunters who were killing thousands of egrets to use their feathers for ladies’ hats, he gathered up eight young snowy egrets and raised them in an aviary or “flying cage” that he built on Avery Island.  Mr. Ned released the birds in the fall to migrate across the Gulf of Mexico - and was delighted when six of the birds (and their mates) returned to nest in the spring."

We found it odd that all of the literature mentioned Snowy Egrets in the rookery, but 99% of the birds were the larger Great Egret. We don't know if they misidentified the birds originally or if there has been a recent change in usage.

Some of the birds were displaying their beautiful white breeding plumes.

Great Egret

Most of the nests had chicks already. In some case there were so many it was hard to tell what chicks went with what adults. 

We didn’t stop back by the gift shop as we had bought plenty of souvenirs at the Tabasco gift shop.

After our busy day Mark still had time to find a very soggy disc golf course.  He got in 15 holes before it started raining and we had to make a run for the truck.

Next time - lots more fun from Louisiana!