Quick Morning Foray

I got to St. Marks NWR early this morning and started walking out the levee on the Southwest side of Stony Bayou I. Much of my route planning in Summer is based on alligator avoidance and this newly-improved levee’s lime rock covered surface was light enough to reveal any lurking gator. The moon had just set and sunrise was over an hour away. The sky was spattered with stars, both faint and bright, and the Milky Way cut a great arc across the sky. A single meteor appeared and then fizzled out.

On the way out I heard Great Blue and Black Crowned Night Herons. I could hear the strident whining whistle of a juvenile Great Horned Owl coming from a pine island to the South and saw an adult owl sitting in a dead pine. My plan to be at the far end of Stony Bayou II by first light proved to be highly aspirational. Morning light was rapidly advancing. I picked an arbitrary spot on the outer levee and waited for sunrise.

Clapper Rails were calling from the salt marshes on my right and a lone King Rail was answering from the freshwater marsh on my left.  I set up my scope and scanned the Eastern horizon, but saw only a few bats and the silhouette of an Osprey sitting in a tree. Small groups of Blue-winged Teal began to fly by and a trio of Black Terns were hunting low over the open water along the edge of the marsh.

There was a bank of low thunderheads blocking the sunrise and I started back when I deemed that it had probably occurred. I took the cross levee back in order to circle Stony Bayou I. There were the usual peeps; Least, Semipalmated and Western Sandpipers in order of frequency, and a single Spotted Sandpiper. I had small numbers of Semipalmated & Black-bellied Plovers, Willets and Greater Yellowlegs. There was a Wilson’s Phalarope, probably a juvenile this late in the Summer. There were a surprising number of ducks. I counted 273 Blue-winged Teal and had a single Northern Shoveler.

I headed down towards the coast and stopped near a mud flat in the marshes North of the Lighthouse. About a hundred and fifty birds were resting there, mostly Willets and Black Skimmers, but also Laughing Gulls, Forster’s & Sandwich Terns and a Marbled Godwit. I got my scope out to check for banded skimmers and saw that a bird in mid flock had an aluminum band on its left leg and a green band on its right. I could read the code on the green band; E68. Later I would find out that this bird was banded as a chick on Marco Island in 2019 and was seen earlier this Summer at Clearwater. 

My last stop was at the Double Bridges on my way out. It was mostly quiet, but I did find a single Worm-eating Warbler. A ground nester, Worm-eating Warblers are only found at St. Marks during migration. It is likely on its way to the Caribbean, perhaps Cuba or Hispaniola.

It was a quick morning foray into St. Marks, but sometimes that’s all you need. Come down to your refuge for a quick shot of nature.

You could use it.