Shepherd Spring Creek

The St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge includes 80,000 acres that stretch across 43 miles of Gulf coast. Most of the refuge’s use is concentrated on the St. Marks Unit; Lighthouse Road down to the Lighthouse along with its associated trails and levees. However, there’s much more to the refuge.

Earlier today, I drove down Spring Creek Highway and parked at a trailhead South of US-98, just before Shell Point Road splits off. You can access the Florida Trail from here, but I had other plans. The old dirt road that heads East from here eventually curves South toward the Gulf and ends at Cow Creek, near where it runs into West Goose Creek across from Wakulla Beach.

I had brought a bike with me for the 3.2-mile trip out to Cow Creek and I rode slowly, listening and watching for birds. Much of this area is second growth pine forest, formerly timber or turpentine land. Interspersed are swamps and sloughs where the best birding is to be had.

It was a gray day, cool and overcast with a light intermittent misting drizzle, but not really wet enough to need raingear.

Stopping for any calling bird in winter usually means ending up with a small feeding flock and I found Cardinals, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Titmice, Hermit Thrushes and towhees. Every time I stopped, I added more species; Yellow-rumped Warblers, Blue-headed Vireo and Black-and-White Warbler. As I passed through a big slough South of Cathedral of Palms, I heard a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker calling. I quickly stopped. The squeal of my bike’s brakes spooked up a pair of Wood Ducks.

Most of the trees were still bare, but others had buds and new leaves. Yellow Jessamine, an aromatic vine, draped the edges of the road and there were occasional wild Azaleas and patches of yellow St. John’s wort.

On the topo map I had seen a spur road that led to Shepherd Spring Creek. It proved to be too overgrown to bike and I followed it out on foot, dodging under and around branches, vines and palm fronds. I was stopped short by a ten-foot gap in the road cut by a tidal creek. I could see the rusted remains of an old steel culvert laying half-buried in the mud. Man builds, but hurricane surges reclaim their own. A Red Cedar’s ropy root provided a potential route across the gap and twenty years ago I would have tightrope-walked across, but now I am an old man and I headed back.

The remaining ride passed through Live Oak and Cabbage Palm hammocks. At the end of the road, I left my bike, daypack and helmet in the middle of the road and walked out to the edge of Cow Creek.  Beyond it, the salt marshes along Goose Creek Bay stretched out to the Gulf. Looking up, I noticed a high-circling Swallow-tailed Kite and watched it as it slowly moved off to the North. 

I walked back to get a sandwich out of my daypack. Then, I saw more kites coming in low. I started counting; two, three, a few more. In total I had eighteen more kites. Ten of them swooped up and landed in a pair of dead pines at the end of the road. 

There were six kites in the bare branches of one tree and four more in the adjacent pine. They began to stretch their wings and preen. I pulled my sandwich out and watched them as I ate. After about fifteen minutes they settled down and sat quietly. They come in from the South. These are returning Spring migrants and it is likely that they had just finished a 600-mile flight across the Gulf from the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. It’s a long flight. They were tired.

I watched them for a while longer. Occasionally, one would stretch or preen, but mostly they sat still. 

I mounted my bike and started the long ride back.