I headed down to St. Marks NWR to take advantage of what looked like it could be a significant Spring Migration Event. A strong cold front with a long trailing tail that hung down into the Gulf was coming through the refuge in mid-morning. The Windstream map had showed that the previous day’s winds coming off Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula had been favorable for migrant birds to launch after sunset. It’s about a six-hundred-mile flight and I was hoping that songbirds would be pushed Eastward by the front and run into it just before they made landfall in late morning. This would cause them to seek the first available landfall at St. Marks NWR.
The frontal passage might also affect other birds. Long-jumping shorebirds coming up from South America and seabirds from out in the Gulf; petrels, shearwaters and frigatebirds. All might be pushed into the refuge by the winds.
This was my operating fantasy and reason enough to don a full rain suit and drive down to the refuge in order to be in place near the lighthouse when birds would presumably start dropping in like confetti. A tornado watch was in effect, so I waited until the radar showed that the worst of the front had passed.
Squall lines were still moving through as I drove toward the lighthouse and the wind was gusting to 35 mph. I could see gulls, terns and shorebirds on the partially-flooded salt flats and stopped to look. I couldn’t see through the side window and I rolled it down. There were Laughing & Bonaparte’s Gulls, Royal, Forster’s & Caspian Terns, Western Sandpipers, Ruddy Turnstones, Willets and Dunlin. A wind gust came through and the gulls and terns fluttered up and landed. In the group there was a medium-sized tern that showed a pale pink belly and breast.
The thing is, there are not supposed to be any medium-sized pink terns in North America.
I quickly rolled up my window, jumped out of the car and set up my scope under the raised back gate of my SUV. The medium-sized tern had a black crown, bill and legs, and a pale gray mantle, but was now completely white underneath. As I watched, it would stretch or bend and flash pink. I cranked up the power on my scope and saw a yellow tip on the black bill, a diagnostic characteristic for Sandwich Tern. It turns out that Sandwich Terns can show a rosy flush in Spring plumage, but I’ve never seen this in my last ten thousand sightings of this species.
I spent two hours birding in the rain at the lighthouse. I was glad that I was wearing a rain suit. There were no seabirds, only pelicans and cormorants. There were no waves of incoming migrants, dropping like confetti.
I decided to walk the Tower Pond Trail and found a Summer Tanager, which had probably come in on the front. There were a few other birds that might have been incoming migrants, Yellow-throated and Palm Warblers, but nothing exciting.
In late afternoon as I headed out of the refuge, an Indigo Bunting flew across the road. I stopped to walk at the Double Bridges in order to check for other migrants. At first, it was an avian desert. Totally birdless. I had walked all the way to one end and was coming back when I saw a quick movement in the shrubs along the road. Then, in my last ten minutes of birding for the day, I added Hooded, Prothonotary & Black-and-white Warbler, as well as, Northern Parula and Northern Waterthrush.
In the end, it wasn’t a major Spring Migration Event, but I got some good birds and even a pink Sandwich Tern. I consider it a dress rehearsal for the next Spring storm.
Get ready to come down to St. Marks. There’s a storm forecast to hit on Tuesday and I’m feeling lucky.
Don Morrow - Tallahassee, FL