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Natural Resources
REFUGE, PARK PROVIDE PATHS TO OUTDOORS ENJOYMENT
by Chuck Chandler • Photography by Meg McKinney
Dozens of dragonflies swarm above white water lilies, caails and cutgrass in a marsh where a couple of big yellow
buerflies are gathered around a puddle in the early morning light.
A great blue heron slowly lis its giant wings and long legs and flies over scaered pines, while doves nearby
quickly exit the same dirt path. Several orioles zip from plant to plant, momentarily resting near purple flowers,
then a yellow bloom, then blue, pink, white, orange and flowers of almost every color imaginable.
Perhaps this is what Native Americans saw long ago, or what early selers may have walked through a couple of
centuries past, when Mother Nature ruled the roost not only in these backwaters, but across all of Alabama.
Just off the beaten asphalt path, the past remains easily accessible on a 7-mile-long, one-lane dirt road in the
Eufaula National Wildlife Refuge. Beginning about a mile west past Lakepoint Resort State Park off Highway 165, a
visitor can drive into the heart of the 11,184-acre protected habitat and see some of its 300 species of birds,
40 different mammals and many varieties of reptiles and fish.
