I headed down to St. Marks NWR on Tuesday morning for some exercise and a little recreational birding. My plan was to start by walking around Stony Bayou II, a 4.7-mile circuit. It’s getting warmer which means that alligators are more active and I am deploying my Gator Defense Strategy. I carry my spotting scope with the tripod legs extended. If a gator attacks, I will shove the tripod legs at it and while it’s busy chomping the scope up, I will run. I realize that this is not actually a very realistic plan, but it is a comforting fantasy and I’m sticking with it.
An almost-full moon is low in the Western sky and I wait on Lighthouse Road for it to break out of a layer of clouds before starting out. The moon shifts from white to gold and eventually becomes a streaked purplish globe as it sinks into the Western horizon, but by then I am a mile down the levee and it’s first light.
It’s a loud Spring morning with multiple Chuck-wills-widows, Least Bitterns, Common Gallinules and King Rails calling. Marsh Wrens, Red-winged Blackbirds and Cardinals join in and I can hear a Black-crowned Night Heron’s wok as it flies by unseen, but the owls are strangely silent. The Eastern sky is covered with textured broken clouds that are shifting through a pastel palette of pinks, mauves and golds. As the sun rises, Barred Owls finally open up from the tree line to the North.
It took me over three hours to make my circuit and get back to Lighthouse Road. By then I had over fifty species on my day list including the inconstant American Flamingo, which is out on Stony Bayou II. I had 33 Common Loon flying North. There were probably more that I didn’t notice. Orchard Orioles are back and singing on territory and Clapper Rails are talkative out in the salt marshes. The female Clappers are making their kek-burr call, which seems to be associated with mating.
Before heading home, I walked the Tower Pond Trail. It had a few stray migrants, Hooded, Black-and-White, Prothonotary, Yellow-rumped and Palm Warblers. There was a lone Whimbrel on the salt flats out near Tower Pond. By then the heat of the day was settling in. I decided not to wait for any possible trans-Gulf birds to come in in the afternoon and headed home.
The refuge is currently open and free. It’s reasonably easy to maintain social distance on the levees and trails. True, Spring migration is a rerun, but there are probably things that you missed the first few times you watched it. And it’s better than Netflix.
Don Morrow, Tallahassee, FL