St. Marks Christmas Bird Count
December brings various celebrations depending on your religion, culture, or belief. It also brings the Christmas Bird Count season. These counts are winter bird surveys done within a defined 15-mile diameter circle. Participants count as many birds as they can within the count circle on a scheduled date. Counts happen over a three-week period at the end of the year and are part science and partly an annual recreational birding celebration. This year marks the 126th Christmas Bird Count.
So, this past Saturday at 4:30 am, three hours before sunrise, I unlocked one of the refuge gates, drove in and began birding my assigned area on the St. Marks Christmas Bird Count. It was a cold, still night with no moon. Night birding requires a lot of passive listening and plenty of opportunity to watch the sky. I saw three meteors as I listened for birds. By 5:00 am I had already recorded three species; Eastern Screech Owl, Barred Owl, and Sora rail.
Over seventy other area birders were taking part in the St. Marks count and most of them would also start the day with a predawn owling session. Most of the day’s birding would be done on foot or by car, but there would be two canoe teams, one on the St. Marks River and another on the Wakulla River. I would be part of a boat team taking advantage of a late afternoon high tide to survey the offshore waters.
By the time it got light, I had added another four species, including a calling King Rail. As I closed out my owling list, I saw a large black cloud of birds rising out of the marshes. It bulged and quivered like a living being before breaking up and spreading out. I estimated that it contained 1,100 Red-winged Blackbirds.
The daytime portion of my territory included Stony Bayou 1 and a portion of Lighthouse Road. Not an especially interesting territory, but all of the circle needs to be covered. I spent four hours counting sparrows, wrens and warblers on levees and roadsides before stopping to head for the Lighthouse boat ramp.
I was meeting Joe Reinman, retired refuge biologist, who had agreed to take me out. The refuge supplied an aluminum skiff with a 60 HP outboard motor, along with a truck and trailer to move it. We launched at 1:00 pm with a plan to be back by 4:00 pm. There was only a 2.9-foot-high tide that afternoon which gave us limited depth and time to work with.
As we got out on the water, Joe casually mentioned that he hadn’t operated a motorboat in many years, being more of an airboat kind of guy. He also said that the boat did not have a full fuel tank when he picked it up, but it probably had enough fuel to get us out and back and he had brought paddles just in case. The Christmas Bird Count, however, must go on and we bumped along the shallows counting birds.
There are a lot of birds out on Apalachee Bay and always the chance that something rare lurks out there. We found nothing rare, but we did find gulls, terns, pelicans, Horned Grebes, cormorants, and Common Loons. Scattered about were many small black-and white Buffleheads, along with other ducks; scaup, mergansers, Common Goldeneyes and especially Redheads.
Five percent of the entire continental Redhead population, possibly as many as 40,000 ducks, winter along the Big Bend coast, grazing on seagrasses. We found a Redhead flock that we estimated at 2,500 ducks. We also found 180 Red-breasted Mergansers, the largest flock that I have ever seen.
We did make it back before the fuel gave out. It was just 4:30 pm. when Joe loaded the boat on the trailer. I said goodbye and headed for home. Elsewhere in the count circle, other teams had finished up and some were still out birding. The St. Marks Christmas Bird Count was drawing to a close.
Christmas Bird Counts are held regardless of the weather, but this had been a glorious blue-sky winter day and a good day of birding.