Oil companies always have a bad rap with the public - with all of yesterdays oil spills, and even here in Warning No Entry, the oil companies are responsible for a good deal of damage. Even here in Forbidden Danger Keep Out, the oil companies have been creating the very narrow passageways I am navigating, for a century. All these channels and passageways, in unison with the levees designed to keep water from flowing here, have depressed the bayou’s ability to hold onto sediment.

Now I'm a few hours out of the swamp and I've thanked Rubin for his pirogue and no I wouldn't be needing any food for my way west to Avery Island.

I'm almost to Avery Island, where the Tabasco Corporation mines salt and experiments with the breeding of its peppers, which it grows in Central America. Avery Island attracts birdwatchers: It's migration season for the birds in North America’s largest flyway, and I want to catch up with some of the folks who follow this rich migration to Cajun country.

McIlhenny, Tabasco founder and early American environmentalist, was upset that the once vast local populations of snowy egrets were dwindling to extinction. So he set up a sanctuary for them on Avery Island and now the species abounds there.

At a gas station, I run into a different sort of birdwatcher. But I don't know that yet. There they are, two curiosities on big motorbikes, talking over a map at the corner of the gas station.

Black t-shirts, Teutonic fonts, big boots - the Harley Davidson look is tired. And nothing speaks more of conformism than the commercialism of some guy wearing a black shirt made by Harley itself. You can look dirty and look cool, but these guys look dirty and like old dishrags.

But what's kind of cool is what I find out when I approach them: Yup, that's right. These guys carry their roosters on the back of their motorbikes. Enclosed in concealed metal cages with breathing holes. After I introduce myself, I ask where they come from.

They say Texas. I say I am pretty much harmless and not an animal rights activist and would they maybe answer me a few questions about cockfighting.

I already know that cockfighters are a secretive bunch. But they are here in Louisiana because it is one of the only states where the act is legal in certain counties. Cockfighting is legal because the state legislature argued that chickens weren't animals at all and therefore aren't privy to cruelty laws, because chickens are just game fowl.

Some small talk and they get my trust and the guy with the bad shave says, "it's a great sport."

Now, I don't like this right off the bat. Cockfighting is not a sport. It's not very hard to know what is and what isn't a sport. For example, watching other men on television is not a sport. And watching chickens fight is not a sport. It may be a sport for the chickens, but it's not a sport for the humans.

People who are like cock fighters have accused me of not being into sports. Somebody who runs in the morning, surfs in the afternoon and plays basketball with the guys at work would be considered not into sports. But somebody who knows football statistics or watches chickens, that guy's into sports.

I ask if they have any equipment. Any sports gear. Yeah, of course they do. The one guy goes into some compartment on his motorcycle and shows me what's like a mini dog collar with steel spikes. He shows me what looks like a rotary blade with rivets attached to a leather collar. Then there's what the bad-shave guy calls his 'trusty.' It’s like a long scythe with an extra-sharp blade.

What you do is you attach this gear to your rooster's feet to make them more deadly. If you're playing at one of the big cockpits, these types of more extreme devices might be against regulations and the law. But if you're playing in more specialized, more secretive cockpits, pretty much anything goes. If that's what you're into.

When I say goodbye and the bad shave guy mock-hits my shoulder and says, 'Good luck with the egrets', I feel they were touched that an outsider was interested in their peculiar and grotesque subculture.

When I arrive at McIlhenny 's Bird City, I meet a couple from Arkansas who've come to see the thousands of snowy egrets who've built their nests in this convenient sanctuary.

They say to me many things. But what's important is they say go now...go...drive north. Into Lafayette. Take a left here, a right there, another left. Go, go, go and so I do.

Hours later, I am listening to a twenty-one minute version of Phish's The Story of the Ghost while I'm walking down the gravel road across Martin Lake's marshlands. This is where the birdwatchers told me to go.