Duck migration is winding down; sighting a rare Sage Thrasher
By DON MORROW
A grinning crescent moon hanging low in the eastern sky welcomed me to St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge on a cold windy morning in late October. The moon provided little light and the night sky was black and full of stars as I drove out to my listening spot to wait for the morning Wood Duck flight.
It was almost two hours until sunrise and there was little happening as I waited for the dawn, only the squawk of a Great Blue Heron, the bark of a Black-crowned Night Heron and a single hooo-aah from a Barred Owl. As first light came on, it was obvious that there would be no morning flight and I moved on to begin counting ducks.
Duck migration begins in late August with Blue-winged Teal transiting to South America for the winter. By late October more duck species start moving and it is time for me to start the winter duck surveys. That day I had only 228 ducks, which is about what I expected this early in the season. Almost all of them were Green-winged or Blue-winged Teal. The majority were on the back end of Stony Bayou II, where I also found a few Northern Pintail and Redheads. There were a few more teal, some Gadwalls and four American Wigeon on Stony Bayou I. On Headquarters Pond I finally found a Wood Duck along with fifteen Blue-winged Teal and a lone Redhead.
Last year also started normally, but ducks never came down in their expected numbers in what was an abnormally warm winter up North. Ducks are lazy and don’t migrate if they have ice-free waters in which to feed. Some forecasts show that this will also be a warm winter. We will see how the season develops.
Winter birds are still arriving at the refuge. As I drove my route along the levees, I scared up Yellow-rumped and Palm Warblers, along with Swamp Sparrows and Eastern Phoebes. I found a first-year female Vermilion Flycatcher on the Gulf-side levee of Stony Bayou II at a spot where they have wintered in the past. This species tends to winter at the same site every winter and if it survives, we can expect this bird to return here in future years.
While I survey for ducks or shorebirds, I keep an eBird list noting all the bird species that I encounter and how many of them I see. I had stopped on Lighthouse Road to count some shorebirds and noticed a car approaching me from behind. When I pulled forward and partly off the road, I spooked a bird in the bushes. It was grayish-backed and I could tell immediately that it wasn’t a catbird, cardinal, or mockingbird. However, I didn’t know what it was. I jumped out of the car and moved closer to try and flush the bird. When it flew, I got a brief, but good look at it. It was a Sage Thrasher, a bird that breeds in the sage flats of the western high deserts. I saw the thrasher one more time, sitting on the stem of a palm frond, before it flew across the saltmarsh to an isolated pine island.
A Sage Thrasher had recently been reported at the nearby Cedar Point Trail. There have been about a half dozen records of Sage Thrasher in the Florida panhandle. Although they have usually stuck around for days or even weeks, there had previously been only one subsequent sighting of the St. Marks bird. It would be worthwhile watching for this bird along the roadsides near the lighthouse and Cedar Point Trail in case it stays around.
St. Marks often has western vagrants in the winter, most commonly Vermilion Flycatchers or Western Kingbirds. This Fall there have been three new records of western birds at the refuge; Western Tanager, Brewer’s Sparrow, and Sage Thrasher. All of these have been found by women birders and, before seeing this thrasher, I was beginning to think that only women birders had the skill to find western rarities.
Come down to St. Marks. Ducks are arriving daily and there are still a few migrants passing through. You never can tell what may show up.
Don Morrow can be reached at donaldcmorrow@gmail.com.
