The Mississippi Kite, Eric G. Bolen and Dan Flores, c. 1993

p. 18

Chapter Two: Mississippi Kites In History -- 

Part 1
Introduction
Custis Misses His Chance

• Introduction:
• species that were directly in the path of the 19th-century exploration of the American west --
• prairie dogs,
• pronghorn,
• coyotes,
• grizzly bears,
• magpies, and,
• Mississippi kites (but southern plains);
• list should have included bison (American buffalo).
• 1803 - 1880s: first the US War Department and then the US Geological Survey
• almost 100 expeditions during that period;
   
• Traditional summer breeding range at that time:
• rimswamps bordering the lower Mississippi
• the eastern perimeter of the South Great Plains
• riparian habitats;
• thus, they were encountered early by explorers following major rivers;
• along these rivers:
• the Red River (of the South) and its tributaries;
• the two forks of the Canadian River;
• the Arkansas River;
• the very first expedition ascending one of these rivers introduced the Mississippi Kite to environmental history
• The Jefferson expeditions
• Thomas Jefferson imagined four expeditions:
  of the four, other than the famous Lewis and Clark, only the expedition up the Red River was commissioned
• Red River expedition
• Peter Custis: first pure scientist ever attached to an Americn exploration adn the first natualist trained in a US university to examine the trans-Mississippi West
  still working on his medical degree under Benjamin Smith Barton at U of Pennsylvania;
  distant relative of former President George Washington's wife
• The Red River, or the Freeman and Custis expedition of 1806
• obscure and forgotten
• overshadowed by the Lewis and Clark expedition;
  large
• contingent than Lewis and Clark's;
• conquered the Great Raft and puzzled its way through the 100-mile-long Great Swamp of present-day Louisiana;
• after four months, reached teh edge of the Blackland Prairies near the eastern border of present-day Oklahoma;
• expedition leader Thomas Freeman elected to stop there to avoid bloodshed
• Custis filed three reports
• 267 species identified, including 36 birds
• Custis may have been the first to see the Mississippi kite but due errors in recording the bird was not named after him; Custic neglected to assign a Latin binomial to his discovery
• only since the 1980s (no typo) has Custis been given credit for discovering the Mississippi kite

page 21
Part 2
In the Southern Wilderness: Wilson, Long, and Audubon

• Note two of the three names: [Alexander] Wilson (father of American ornithology) and James Audobon, painter and naturalist;
• 1806: Custis identifies Mississippi kite for first time, but due to error, does not get credit. Formal credit for the discovery of the Mississippi kite came five years later, 1811 -- one of Custis' competitors.
  
• 1811 expedition of the Red River: Jefferson names William Bartram; but Bartram mailed the 'invite' to Alexander Wilson, a young friend, a Scottish poet and bird painter. Would eventually become the father of American ornithology.
• 1809: Wilson at work on volume three of his 9-volume American Ornithology (1808 - 1814); was touring the southern states to enroll subscribers. 
• river town of Natchez: in the Mississippi Territory; was the frontier head of the Red River expedition.
• Alexander Wilson visits Sir William Dunbar on an adjacent plantation, called "The Forest."
• on Bayou Manchac: Wilson first notes the newly seen Mississippi Kite; baldcypress swamps;
  
• baldcypress trees: the baldcypress tree is the classic tree of southern swamps. There, in its native habitat, it displays a peculiar habit of raising conical "knees" from its roots. The function of these growths is something of a mystery, although some believe it is a way to help the roots get oxygen. This tree dwells in swamps because it out-competes most other trees on such sites. Bald cypress trees with knobby knees. We see a lot of these in the swamps in / around Boston.
  
• Alexander Wilson: neighbor of William Bertram in Pennsylvania. In Volume III, Wilson described the new species, Falco Mississippiensis but failed to mention either Custis or Bartram.
• Peter Custis did not subscribe to Wilson's 9-volume opus.
• Considered one of his best paintings in his 9-volume opus.
• During 15 years following the aborted Red River exploration in the southwest, three more exhibitions where the Mississippi Kite could be found (summer range):
• 1807: General James Wilkinson dispatched, commanded by Lt Zebulon Montgomery Pike
  west along the Arkansas River
  the northwestern perimeter of the kite's range
• 1819: Thomas Nuttall, now-famous botanist; private exhibition
  onto the waters of the lower Arkansas in present-day Arkansas and Oklahoma;
• third exhibition: Stephen Long and Edwin James; "the Long Expedition."
• crossed the Plains to the Central Rockies in 1820;
• Canadian River: saw large number of Mississippi Kites
• riparian woodlands along the rivers of the southern prairies
• during a cicada bloom
• 1821: John James Audubon; Louisiana; not yet a rival of Alexander Wilson;
  from New Orleans to Bayou Sara (that portion of eastern Louisiana that "panhandles" under Mississippi);
• on Bayou Sara; the city of St Francisville, on the Missississippi, halfway between Natchez, MS, and Baton Rouge, LA
  p. 27
• 1821: Audubon leaves New Orleans, heads for Bayou Sara; 1819 had first seen the Mississippi Kite while at Pirrie Plantation; but didn't get a bird in hand until 1821; then painted it;
• his plate not published until 1831; further fueled rivalry between Audubon and Wilson
• Audubon's male kite obviously plagiarised; wow
• 1840s: Army Corps of Topographical Engineers; John Charles Fremont;
• Southern High Plains
• Lieutenant James W. Abert from Bent's Fort to the upper Canadian River to its confluence with the Arkansas River in 1845: the heart of Mississippi Kite country -- the TEXAS PANHANDLE;

page 28
Part 3
The Pacific Railroad Surveys and After

 

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Bayou Manchac

I know nothing about the "real topology" of Louisiana. If I had all the money in the world, I would hire a guide and spend a few weeks in the bayous. 

I first came across "Bayou Manchac" while reading about the Mississippi Kite.

From wiki:

Bayou Manchac is an 18-mile-long bayou in southeast Louisiana, USA. First called the Iberville River ("rivière d'Iberville") by its French discoverers, the bayou was once a very important waterway linking the Mississippi River (west end) to the Amite River (east end).

East Baton Rouge Parish lies on its northern side, while its southern side is divided between Ascension Parish (to the east) and Iberville Parish (to the west). The large unincorporated community of Prairieville and the city of St. Gabriel both lie on its southern side.

Now that I'm writing about this, it seems I have done this before. Bayou Manchac was a short cut from the Mississippi River back to the Gulf of Mexico where New Orleans is now, Lake Pontchartrain. The bayou (or river) was a shortcut or "back door" from the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico at New Orleans.

This is a great interactive map of the bayou.  

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Bayou Sara

St Francisville, head the mouth of the Bayou Sara, is about midway between Natchez, MS, on the Mississippi River to the north, and Baton Rouge to the south, also on the Mississippi.

From wiki, link here. Let's see how long that entry lasts. LOL.