Mid-October at the refuge
By DON MORROW
By mid-October sunrise at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge comes late and it was still nighttime as I carefully made my way down the levee under the pale light of a fat crescent moon sitting in a dark star-spattered sky. It was a cool morning, in the upper 50s, but I was still watching the levee surface for any dark shape that might be a gator. When I looked up again, the eastern sky was cut by a luminous wavy white band, which stood out starkly against the night sky.
Space X had launched a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral earlier that morning. Although dawn was still a half hour away, light from the sun, rising somewhere out in the Atlantic, was hitting the upper atmosphere, illuminating the rocket’s contrail. From the marsh around me, I could hear the squonk of baby gators and from the distant treeline, the hooting monkey call of a Barred Owl. I watched the high-tech pyrotechnics as the contrail slowly shifted colors and faded as the sky lightened.
Mid-October is a transitional time in Fall migration. Transmigrants are still streaming through, but our wintering birds are beginning to arrive. Yellow Warblers are still passing through the refuge and will continue to do so into early November. I saw lots of Palm Warblers down from the boreal forests of western Canada, most are headed to the West Indies. Almost all of our wintering Palm Warblers are the “yellow” subspecies from eastern Canada. They will soon be arriving on the refuge. A large flock of Blue-winged Teal had stopped on Mounds Pool 3. Most will continue on, a few as far as Brazil. With them were a handful of Northern Shovelers that will overwinter in the big islands of the Caribbean, perhaps Hispaniola or Cuba.
October sees not only transmigrants, but also the arrival of the refuge’s wintering species. Eastern Phoebes and Swamp Sparrows are suddenly common and I saw my first Yellow-rumped Warbler of the season. Among the shorebirds arriving for the winter, I found Wilson’s Snipe and the first 50 Dunlin of the season. By next month there may be 2,000 Dunlin at St. Marks.
Our current drought has dropped the water levels on most of the ponds and pools, although Stony Bayou 1 still has water. There, I found a large flock of waders: Tricolored and Little Blue Herons, along with 20 dark ibis, a mix of Glossy and White-faced. These two ibis species are common at the refuge in winter. Glossy Ibis breed on the refuge and used to be a regular sight at the refuge in summer before the collapse of the big wading bird rookery on East River Pool. Nowadays, Glossy Ibis are scarce at St. Marks in the warmer months.
The dropping water on Lighthouse Pond is attracting birds. I had over 800 birds, mostly shorebirds. Of the 11 species of shorebirds on the pond, almost half were Short-billed Dowitchers, but there were American Oystercatchers, Marbled Godwits, Willets, and a flock of over 100 Ruddy Turnstones. Black Skimmers, Laughing Gulls and both Royal and Forster’s Terns were also resting on the pond.
My last stop was at Headquarters Pond, which is now a mudflat spotted with lily pads. Carefully scanning the exposed mud, I found 26 Pectoral Sandpipers. These birds are coming from the Arctic, some even from the Siberian Arctic. They are headed to their wintering grounds on the Pampas of South America.
I ended up birding the refuge for 7 hours, starting in the predawn darkness and ending on a glorious blue sky Fall day. The government is still shut down, but the refuge is open.
Come down to St. Marks. Your very own glorious Fall day awaits you.
Don Morrow can be reached at donaldcmorrow@gmail.com.
