Mid-December Duck Survey
Even the later-arriving wintering ducks have had time to reach St. Marks NWR and it’s time for the annual mid-December Duck Survey. So, on Tuesday morning I was waiting on the North levee of Stony Bayou II at first light for the morning Wood Duck flight. There had been a lot going on while I waited. Soras and Barred Owls were calling and an American Bittern did a flyby within twenty feet of me. Unfortunately, I had only two Wood Ducks calling from somewhere in the dark.
This is the fifth year that I have been doing this survey and I wasn’t concerned about the low Wood Duck number. The data shows a significant amount of variability in population numbers for individual species from year to year. However, the common ducks like teal, Bufflehead, scaup and Redhead always occur in the highest numbers and the uncommon ducks like Gadwall, Canvasback and Common Goldeneye always occur in the lowest numbers. With the light level coming up fast I moved down to the end of the pool to begin counting day ducks.
I had just over two hundred ducks on Stony Bayou II, mostly Green-winged Teal, but a surprising number of Hooded Mergansers. There were other birds out. I counted forty Wilson’s Snipe feeding out in the open and had a King Rail walk out within feet of me. As I made the turn onto the cross levee, I found fifteen Snow Geese; four blue morph and eleven white morph geese. The sky was clearing. It was a good morning to be out. Birder bliss.
My laid-back attitude was tested an hour later when I saw a sea of ducks on Mounds Pool III. A quick scan revealed both teal, Shovelers, scaup and many, many Redheads. Now, my usual technique is to count one species at a time, scanning from right to left. I try to count them individually, but if there are too many, I estimate by tens. The problem is that Mounds Pool III is 1.5 miles long and it looked like ducks and coots covered most of its surface. I decided to start by counting all the ducks up to where the American Flamingo was sleeping and hope that the flamingo didn’t wake up and move.
I had moved down the outer levee and was beginning to count ducks on the next segment of the pool when I saw a cloud of ducks flying toward me, pursued by an eagle.
I have decided that I hate eagles.
The flock was pure Redhead and I was trying to estimate numbers when the flock split and a portion of it reversed course. The eagle made several unsuccessful attacks on groups of ducks and coots and then flew off. Despite the eagle, I managed to come up with duck numbers and continued my survey. My final estimate for Redheads on Mounds Pool III was 1,800 birds. I also added Pintail, Mallard, Black Duck and even more Hooded Mergansers. Lighthouse Pool also had large numbers of ducks, but they sat still and I could count the whole pool in a single scan.
Today’s survey showed low numbers for Gadwall, Blue-winged Teal, Mallard, Scaup and Bufflehead. Bufflehead are a small duck that nests in Flicker cavities up in the boreal forest. I saw just under half the Buffleheads that I expected. Other species, like American Wigeon, Redhead and Hooded Merganser are above their average number, especially Redhead which were five times their previous high number.
Total duck numbers at the refuge in the 2016 and 2017 surveys clustered tightly around 2,100. Hurricane Michael hit before the 2018 survey and in 2018 and 2019 total duck numbers dropped and clustered tightly around 1,650. Today I recorded 3,790 ducks. The increase is almost entirely due to Redhead numbers. There are always massive flocks of wintering Redheads out in Apalachee Bay feeding on their preferred food, seagrasses. I don’t know why so many of them decided to move into the interior ponds.
I had nineteen waterfowl species today. It’s a good duck year at St. Marks and the span from now through the end of January is the best time to see ducks.
You need to go birding at the refuge!