Duck Survey at SMNWR

Driving down the road to the refuge, I could see the lights at the St. Marks NWR gate on Lighthouse Road, when I noticed something in the road ahead of me. I switched on my bright lights. A Gray Fox was running down the center line, occasionally glancing over its shoulder to see if I was still following. I slowed down to fox-speed and watched it for several hundred yards until it ran off the road into the darkness of a moonless night.

I was meeting, Madie and Holly, at the Visitor Center parking lot at 6:00 am for a duck survey. They’re two recent college graduates starting their biologist careers as Carney interns at the refuge. Because of Covid, they would be in a separate vehicle. They pulled in, right on time, in a big US Fish & Wildlife Service pickup. I explained the survey protocol and we got underway.

This was the second of the annual mid-winter duck surveys. The first survey at the end of October showed slow duck movement, only four species and just 106 ducks. The second survey, which is done in mid-November, usually shows a big jump in the numbers and I was looking forward to the data.

Our first stop was on the North levee of Stony Bayou II to count the Wood Duck morning flight as they left their overnight roosts in the marshes and headed out into the swamps to feed on acorns. The sky was already brightening up. It was a clear cold morning. The kind of day that’s full of promise.

Sora, Common Gallinules, Catbirds and Marsh Wrens were already calling and we could hear the squealing calls of several Wood Ducks. They started flying as first light came up. There were single birds, pairs and a few larger groups. We ended up with a total of forty Wood Ducks before they stopped moving. Having extra observers really helped.

We swung around the far end of the pond and worked our way back East, down the outer levee. Behind us, the sun burst over the horizon and the main part of morning flight began. The sky was full of Great Egrets, undulating flocks of Red-winged Blackbirds and a few hump-backed Wood Storks. A Kestrel sat on a dead snag out in the salt marsh. Coots and Pied-billed Grebes dotted the surface of Stony Bayou. We found a few dozen ducks on Stony Bayou II, mostly Ring Necks, but both Blue-winged & Green-winged Teal, Lesser Scaup and a single Redhead. A Hooded Merganser flew along the tree line on the far side of the pond.

We continued running our route, passing along Stony Bayou I and East River Pool. 

Northern Harriers skimmed the marshes The levee edges were full of Palm Warblers, Savannah Sparrows and Marsh Wrens. Yellow-rumped Warblers were in every tree and bush. Four or five hundred Tree Swallows boiled out of the cattails on the far side of East River Pool and a lone Merlin flew across the pure blue morning sky, but we had no more ducks until we got to Mounds Pool III.  

Mounds Pool III had about half of the day’s ducks scattered in groups along the mile and a half length of the pool. There were a few Northern Shovelers, Pintails, Redheads and Hooded Mergansers, but good numbers of Gadwall, Wigeon, Mallard and Blue-winged Teal. There were 144 Green-winged Teal, usually the most common wintering duck on the interior ponds at St. Marks.

We looped around to survey Tower, Lighthouse, Picnic and Headquarters Ponds, but found no ducks. I had expected to find a few Bufflehead and Goldeneye on the nearshore waters of Apalachee Bay by now, but there were no ducks. We did find the American Flamingo hunkered down at the end of an oyster bar covered with cormorants.

We finished up the day surveying Mounds Pool I from Lighthouse Road. There were rafts of Green-winged Teal, some Blue-wings and a handful of Wigeon. It had been a good day and I had appreciated the help from Madie and Holly. Programs like St. Mark’s Carney internship are an important source of work experience for new biologists.

Our survey total for the day was 568 ducks of 12 different species—a five-fold increase in duck numbers and a tripling of duck diversity in seventeen days. This is typical for November and duck numbers will double or even triple by before the next survey in mid-December. The ducks are coming down to St. Marks. 

Maybe you should too.