RSS Feed

Esther Calloway, 62, a native and resident of Morgan City, died Sunday, Sept. 30, 2018, at her residence.
Visitation will be Friday, 9-10:45 a.m. with a rosary at 10 a.m. and services at 11 a.m., at Sacred Heart of Jesus Roman Catholic Church in Morgan City. Burial will follow in Morgan City Cemetery.
She is survived by two sons, Eric Hebert of Seattle and Freddie Calloway Jr. of Morgan City; three daughters, Nicole Calloway of Morgan City, Taryn Davis of Jeanerette and Rolanda Ladday of Patterson; four sisters, Muriel Madise, Theresa Banks, Sharon Hebert and Eugenia Santana, all of Morgan City; a brother, Mark Hebert of Patterson; 11 grandchildren; and a host of other relatives.
She was preceded in death by her husband, parents, a sister, and maternal and paternal grandparents.
Jones Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

Submitted Photo
Kiwanis Club of East St. Mary recently held its annual installation banquet at Café JoJo’s River Room. During the banquet, several awards were given out, and one of those awards was the George F. Hixson Fellowship Award. This award was bestowed on Blane Aucoin for his dedication to the club. The award is a way of recognizing people who have contributed significantly to Kiwanis’ history of generosity. Aucoin gives of his time for several projects and programs within the club, including the Kiwanis Club of East St. Mary Kids Fishing Rodeo and J S Aucoin Terrific Kids and BUGS program. Pictured are the newly installed lieutenant governor for Division 17 LaMissTenn District of Kiwanis International, Calvin Carrier (also a Hixson recipient), and award recipient Aucoin.

Staff Report
The Humane Society of Louisiana is co-hosting a community meeting Thursday at the Bayou Vista Library, located at 1325 Belleview St., with Braylins Pet Haven, a local humane organiza-tion based in St. Mary Parish, a news release said.
The meeting, which is free and open to the public, will be 6-7:30 p.m. and address animal neglect and pet overpop-ulation issues within the parish. The Humane Society of Louisiana, based out of New Orleans, is conducting a series of meetings around the state to work with local officials, law en-forcement, animal con-trol agencies, rescue organizations, and con-cerned citizens to develop short- and long-range goals to improve basic services to help animals in need, the release said.
The Humane Society and Braylins Pet Haven plan to invite representatives from the parish council, sheriff’s office, the parish president’s office, humane groups and the parish animal control department to attend the meeting, the re-lease said.
The Humane Society has hosted and plans to host similar meetings in other areas.
“Hosting these com-munity meetings allows us to meet other like-minded people and agencies that share our goal of helping animals in need. These meetings expand our networking capacities and allow us to meet community leaders who often share our same goals; and we’ve found that by working together we can often share resources, strategies, and ideas,” said Jeff Dorson, executive director for The Humane Society of Louisiana, in the re-lease.
For more information, contact the Humane Society of Louisiana by calling 901-268-4432 or emailing in-fo@humanela.org.

Food, water and shelter are the basic requirements for attracting birds to your yard. But you can boost the number and variety of species that visit by taking an additional landscaping step: learning the birds’ preferences.
“Birdscaping” plants should be chosen to provide food and shelter year round, said Leonard Perry, horticulture professor emeritus with the University of Vermont.
“Native plants should be a major component, as they provide a huge food source for birds, especially insects which have co-evolved with them,” Perry said. “Ninety-six percent of terrestrial bird species depend on insects — and lots of them.”
Many landscapes now contain relatively few native plants, perhaps no more than 25 percent, he said.
“A goal of gardeners should be to increase this percent, to perhaps as high as 75 percent native plants to 25 percent introduced plants,” Perry said. “Even a modest increase in the number of native plant species in a landscape can increase greatly the number of bird species and overall numbers of birds.”
A variety of landscape plants is important when creating wildlife habitat.
“Diversity breeds diversity, and it is a bigger relationship than just between bird and plant,” said Rhiannon Crain, project leader of The Habitat Network for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “It is a ‘love triangle’ of sorts between plants, insects and birds.”
Many migrating songbirds primarily eat insects, she said. That’s why they migrate; insect populations disappear during the cold months, so birds must move south to places where insects are always available.
“That means the more of those kinds of plants you have around, the more likely you are to have a diversity of insects that specialize on them,” Crain said. “And more insects mean more kinds of food for more kinds of birds.”
Plants supplying cover include dense varieties with many twigs providing nesting sites, plants of various heights, and groups of conifers for roosting and protection from chill winter winds.
“Anything evergreen provides good shelter, but if it has a berry on it, all the better,” said Julie Janoski, plant clinic manager at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois, about 25 miles west of Chicago.
“For example, juniper berries are a favorite of cedar waxwings,” she said. “Many plants, such as juniper, crabapple and serviceberry, will attract a wide variety of birds.”
And don’t forget the accessories. Birds also need water and protected places to live, especially in urban areas where such surroundings may be lacking.
Water fixtures, feeders, deadfalls and snags, small brush piles and tree groves will keep birds in the vicinity.
“Adding water, especially moving water, to a landscape is the fastest way to increase the diversity of birds you see out in the open in your yard,” Crain said. “Species that won’t come to a feeder will come to water.”
Birds look for safe stopping spots as they migrate through, she said.
“An individual yard prepared with thoughtfulness and care can make the difference to an exhausted bird who needs a safe place to rest,” Crain said.