I had gotten back to town on an evening flight the night before and I was late getting down to St. Marks NWR. It was just past first light when I passed through the gate and almost 7:00 am before I parked at the Lighthouse. I had been reading Bob Duncan’s posts about how East winds were bringing Caribbean migrants in to the Florida panhandle and I was anxious to find some before the winds changed. Bob had said that the favorable wind patterns might last for a few days, but I didn’t want to take the chance of hearing the dreaded, “You should have been here yesterday.”
My experience with these birds is that they show up early and I wanted to work the beach and coastal trails before trying the Tower Pond trail. I started walking East on the beach and just at sunrise, I scared up a Green Heron that may have come in overnight. I turned around to put the rising sun at my back as I hunted for warblers in the Wolfberry hedges. I saw flitting birds, but could only identify a Common Yellowthroat and an Orchard Oriole. There was not much else until I reached a section of the beach backed by Red Cedars. From there up to the Lighthouse I started seeing Blackpoll and Cape May Warblers and a few more Yellowthroats.
I continued past the Lighthouse down the levee trail. A Gray Kingbird flew by and out on Lighthouse Pond I could see a Merlin chasing grackles. I found more warblers along the levee, but no new species and I moved on to the Cedar Point Trail.
There was a lone Palm Warbler on the edge of the parking lot. Like all of the Palm Warblers that I ended up seeing, it was of the Western subspecies that winters in the Caribbean. I started walking down the trail and in the first hundred feet, I found Northern Parula warbler, an Ovenbird, a Prairie Warbler and a Gray Catbird. Before I had reached the end of the short trail I encountered, a Black-and-White Warbler, an American Redstart, a Black-throated-Blue Warbler and even more Blackpolls, Cape Mays and Yellowthroats.
By this point I was up to ten warbler species. I decided it was time to head for the Tower Pond Trail.
The Tower Pond Trail is a one-mile loop. At first there were only more of the species that I had been seeing, but the pond had a dozen species of shorebirds, including a few Stilt Sandpipers. It was getting to be late morning and birding seemed to be slowing down until I reached an oak grove that, in addition to more Cape Mays, Blackpolls, Parulas and Black-throated Blues, also had two Yellow-throated Warblers. While completing the Tower Pond loop, I added a Pine Warbler and Brown-headed Nuthatches to my list and found a cooperative Northern Waterthrush that I studied for about ten minutes.
It was coming up on noon and it was time to go home and unpack from my trip. I ended my birding day with seventy-five species, including thirteen different warblers. As Bob Duncan had indicated, the species that I saw are usually more common as peninsular migrants and had been pushed West by the prevailing winds.
The peak of Spring migration is drawing to an end. Come down to St. Marks and join the warbler hunt before the heat of summer sets in.
Your life will be the better for it.
Don Morrow - Tallahassee, FL