Hank Burch rushed outside his office at the state's new Five Rivers Delta Resource Center at the urging of a fellow center worker. From the deck, he could see the Mobile skyline in the distance across the marsh grasses and the broad expanse of Mobile Bay. In the wide blue sky above, he saw one of those unusual sights that is not uncommon at his workplace.

"There was a flock of white pelicans circling overhead, 100 strong," Burch said.

Burch is the manager of the new $10.5 million state-built education and convention center in Spanish Fort just off the Mobile Causeway. Within sight of the busy roadways connecting Mobile with the bay's eastern shore, Burch watches fish jump, egrets stalk, 8-foot alligators cruise, and endangered red-bellied turtles nest on the shores.

The Delta Resource Center is designed as a gateway to 250,000 acres of watery wilderness, 100,000 of them under public ownership, where the principal river systems of Alabama collide, the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta. It was paid for by natural gas royalties collected by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

"We envisioned this place to be a gateway to the Delta, to show people what we bought and why," Burch said. "There will be powerboat tours leaving from here. It will be a hub for nature-based tourism for coastal Alabama."

At the center, which is at the southern end of the delta where it empties into Mobile Bay, visitors can launch or tie up at the docks, rent kayaks and canoes, charter trips or learn about the delta in an exhibit hall and in the 90-seat theater. In coming months, a regular charter boat will take eco-tourists into the marshes rich with birds, fish and alligators and the occasional manatee, marshes that gradually transition into tupelo gum and cypress swamp, cross-cut with narrow river channels.

The department is working to connect the center by waterway trails to the Bartram Canoe Trail, which starts about 30 miles north of the center. The 200-mile Bartram Trail includes floating campsites among the swamps and bayous of the northern delta.

Tourism growing:

The center adds another aspect to Mobile's growing tourist industry. The Retirement Systems of Alabama invested in the renovation of two historic hotels in Mobile, the Riverview Plaza and the Battle House Hotel. RSA was also a partner in the city's cruise port construction, now home to a Carnival Cruise Lines ship. RSA's total investment in downtown Mobile is estimated to exceed $300 million. And the center is opening at a time when nature-based tourism and paddle sports are exploding in popularity.

This weekend, the center is hosting the fourth annual Alabama Coastal Birdfest, the departure point for birders watching for flocks of migratory birds moving south for the winter.

On the last weekend in October, the center hosts the Bartram Trail Conference, a gathering of academics and enthusiasts interested in the 18th century naturalist who explored the South recording the wilderness before it was altered by European settlement. William Bartram's travels through the South were a forerunner to and something of an inspiration for the Lewis and Clark expedition to the west.

"He explored pristine natural wilderness and writes about it in a really romantic way," said Kathryn Braund, an Auburn history professor and president of the Bartram organization. "Most of the places Bartram visited have been changed dramatically. In Alabama, the delta area is most like what Bartram saw."

Sharing the center that weekend will be participants in the inaugural Five Rivers Fall Kayak Fishing Tournament. Interest in that sport has grown rapidly in recent years. Manufacturers have turned out a host of sit-on-top kayaks rigged for fishing rods, even adding advanced offerings such as GPS, fish finders and live-bait wells.

"It is cheap, especially now with the price of gas, and we can get places where motorboats can't. We go into areas that have never been fished," said Mike Bosarge, the kayak fishing club's president. "It is quiet. Alligators swim by. Porpoises surface next to you. Eagles watch you from the trees. You see families of otters peeking up at you.

"You are able to get closer to nature and you are not scaring them away because of the sound of the motorboat. And it's just so pretty up there."

At the lower end of the delta and in the bay, you find saltwater species including redfish, flounder, Spanish mackerel, tarpon and trout. In the upper delta, freshwater species such as crappie and bass predominate.

Migratory paradise:

As the weather cools and seasons change, the area becomes more inviting.

"This is the time of year I personally love," Burch said. "When you are out on the waterway out here, there is no telling what you will see with the birds flying south."

While some people might be spooked at the idea of sharing the water with alligators, they aren't a threat if you don't corner them and don't keep stringers of fish dangling in the water. If they're too close for comfort, a whistle blow or bang on the side of your boat will send them scurrying. "It is basically common sense and you do fine," said kayak fisherman Bosarge.

"Don't feed the gators," Burch said. "They will bite the hand that feeds them."

Braund said the state's decision to buy and preserve ecologically and historically important land was wise, and making those holdings available and accessible makes it an even better investment. Participants in the Bartram conference will come from across the South to explore the waters Bartram once canoed.

"What the Alabama Department of Natural Resources has done just boggles the mind," she said. "It is not just a gift for the people of Alabama, but for people everywhere."

E-mail: tspencer@bhamnews.com