May 24 - Wickliffe Mounds - Kentucky State Historic Site

It is a warm and humid morning today, at 73º F.  I finally pulled out of the motel at 11 a.m., and drove over to the Wickliffe Mounds State Historic Site around noon, paying the $4 entrance fee.  Cheap!This park is a display of an excavated Mississippian mound site.  I think the State of Kentucky does a great job, here.

I first went through their museum and display of the archaeological dig.  The site is situated on a bluff near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers in the original Chickasaw homelands.  On the grounds are a residential mound, a ceremonial mound, a cemetery building and early villages. The Mounds prominently feature two central platform mounds, a central plaza and eight smaller mounds surrounding the area.

This place has pretty good interpretive signing

This site was occupied from 1150 years BCE to around 1350 A.D.  That’s 2,500 years!  It gets a person thinking that the stuff going on in our 250-year-old country may just be blips on the radar of history . . .

In any event, the site was “investigated” in the 1930s by one Fain W. King, who bought the site from a lumber company, and excavated it & put the artifacts on display, charging people to come see them.  Many of the ‘artifacts’ were human remains, which were finally reburied according to the provisions of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.  The King excavations are covered by a building to preserve the site.

The State of Kentucky did not allow photos (although there are a lot of photos on the interwebs), so I was a good law-abiding citizen and did not photograph the artifacts or the excavations.  This photo, showing the interior, is on the State’s web page.

From the State of Kentucky's Web Site

It was OK to photograph around the grounds, but there was nothing spectacular here, unless you think that 2,000-year-old mounds are cool.

And, I do . . .

There is a little nature trail back of the main buildings, where you can see how the bluffs were part of the 'defensive' structure of the site.  These obvioulsy are not readily scaled by foes (or friends).

As far as my birding, there was a pair of Mississippi Kites soaring around, and landing in the trees at the Site.

Ictinia mississippiensis

I had never before seen these cool birds, which were my ABA Lifer No. 609!  Woohoo!

These are handsome and graceful birds!

I finally left the park and really enjoyed having spent time learning about the ‘Mound Builders’ this morning.  I picked up some lunch at the Kentucky Hillbilly BBQ, a little place across the street from the mounds.  Not bad food.  Then, I stopped at the Wickliffe Harbor to stand a bit on the banks of the mighty Mississippi.  There were a number of tug and tows, but most were tied up, presumably due to the high water.

Then, it was “on the road, again”, as I am still working my way southwest toward Texas.  En route, I passed through Bardwell, where I saw my “first-of-the-year” Blue Grosbeak.  I also passed through this metropolis:

Is this where Eeylops Owl Emporium gets its birds?

I pulled into Brownsville, Tennessee at 6 p.m. and asked for a no-smoking room at the Sunrise Inn on Main Street.  The nice woman looked at me, perfunctorily opened her book (without looking at it) and said, “we don’t have any non-smoking rooms.”  Mind you, there was only one other car in the parking lot . . .  I’m not certain that I didn’t just experience discrimination.  Probably because of my mustache?  I drove out past the Budget Inn on Grand, and I discriminated against what looked like a flea-bag.  So, I went on out to the freeway, and checked into the Roadway Inn, which smells a bit musty and has poor interweb connection.  Other than that, it is an adequate-enough place.  I ate supper at the local Pizza Hut, came back & watched some of the U. Wash vs Kentucky U playoff game, where the Huskies beat the Wildcats 3-0.

Nobody loves Starlings . . .

Wickliffe Mounds eBird Checklist is Here

Wickliffe Harbor eBird Checklist is Here

Bardwell, Kentucky eBird Checklist is Here