Over a million birds crossed over St. Marks NWR last night on their fall migration flight. Warblers, tanagers, shorebirds, flycatchers and cuckoos were reenacting an ancient ritual as they flew several thousand feet above the ground on a clear night with a thin crescent moon. The ancestors of these birds likely flew over sleeping mammoths and saber-toothed cats on their own journeys. Ten thousand years ago when humans first came to the Big Bend, they may have woken in the middle of the night and heard the calls of migrating thrushes. Did they recognize them for what they were or take them for the sounds of seasonal spirits calling down from above?
Today was the Autumnal Equinox and signs of seasonal change are everywhere. Pink Muhly grass is dotting the levee edges. Swarms of butterflies; sulphurs, fritillaries and buckeyes, are dancing above the flowers of goldenrod, blazing star, golden aster, shepherd’s needle and purple false-foxglove. The heat of summer is stubbornly holding on, but fall is now officially underway.
With a clear day forecast and an extreme high tide at midday, it seemed like a good opportunity for a shorebird survey. Most of the shorebirds are concentrated on Tower Pond and the first part of my day would be spent checking flooded ponds, which would have no shorebirds. However, there are always a few migrant birds that stop at the Gulf edge to feed before making the long overwater flight and others that migrate East along the coast, heading for Caribbean wintering grounds. Having to run a set route for the shorebird survey does not mean you can’t do some freelance birding along the way.
I was on the far end of Stony Bayou when the sun rose. Within minutes I started running into warblers on the edge of the levee, Palm, Yellow and Yellowthroat. Some of the Palm Warblers flew across the marsh heading for the coastal hammock and better feeding. By the time I got to Tower Pond in late morning, I had added Prothonotary and Prairie Warblers plus an unexpected sighting of an early Clay-colored Sparrow.
Tower Pond had almost 900 shorebirds. About half were Willets, Western Sandpipers or Least Sandpipers. However, there were also godwits, yellowlegs, plovers and a continuing Wilson’s Phalarope.
There were other birds there, too. Reddish Egrets and a flock of 190 Black Skimmers, within which I found two banded birds from Pinellas County.
I swung through the Lighthouse area where there were more Willets, as well as, the flamingo and several dozen Roseate Spoonbills. The water level on Headquarters Pond is dropping, exposing mudflats, and there I found plovers, Least Sandpipers and three Pectoral Sandpipers among the usual gallinules. Checking roadsides along my route as I finished up, added Ovenbird and a fall-plumaged Scarlet Tanager that was eating Virginia Creeper berries.
There are still some warm days ahead, but birds, butterflies and fall wildflowers hold the promise of cooler days to come at St. Marks.