Midsummer birding at the refuge
By DON MORROW
I pulled over and parked on the side of the road a few hundred yards before the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge gate. It was coming up on half past five on a starry moonless night. I got out of the car and stood listening in the darkness. Chuck-wills-widows have finally stopped calling, but I heard the whinnying call of an Eastern Screech Owl, close at first and then further off. A pair of coyotes howled plaintively in the middle distance. Otherwise, it was quiet.
I got back in the car and drove into the refuge. Out in the marshes frogs were calling. Later, coming up on first light as the stars faded and the sky gained color, I heard night herons coming into roost. The sharper calls of the yellow-crowns stood out from the more common Black-Crowned Night-Herons.
It is midsummer at the refuge. The flowers of summer – wood sage, swamp hibiscus and partridge pea – are in bloom. Dragonflies are at their peak as darners, saddlebags, pennants and dragonlets are cruising over the marshes and along the levees. Whitetail bucks are in velvet and young Bobkittens are taking their first steps.
Red-winged Blackbirds and Willets are beginning to flock up. The first of the migrant sandpipers, Least, Pectoral, Solitary and Spotted, have started to pass through. It is time to watch for newly arrived Yellow Warblers along Lighthouse Road and Ospreys are beginning to leave. The Ospreys will move down the peninsula and island hop to South America for the winter.
The breeding season at the refuge is not completely over. Wilson’s Plover chicks are scurrying across the mudflats following their parents. Common Gallinules are raising their second broods on Headquarters Pond and Eastern Kingbirds are still feeding young fledglings.
In the swamps along the Double Bridges, Red-eyed Vireos and Red-bellied Woodpeckers are feeding on the fruit of Swamp Dogwood. Peppervine, Elderberry and Grape are just getting ripe. Look closely and you will notice that Yaupon, Virginia Creeper and Cabbage Palm are all covered with green fruits that will feed migrant catbirds, tanagers, and orioles in the Fall.
July is tern time. Eight tern species may occur on the refuge this month: Black, Common, Forster’s, Least, Gull-billed, Sandwich, Caspian and Royal. They represent a mix of breeding, oversummering and migrant species.
Life at St. Marks is always in a constant state of change as it follows an endlessly repeating annual cycle. Each cycle is subtly different, punctuated occasionally by the odd event like a razorbill incursion or a flamingo influx.
Come down to your refuge. It’s about time you checked up on things.
Don Morrow can be reached at donaldcmorrow@gmail.com.
