Tail End of Summer
It’s August at St. Marks NWR and the end of Summer is in sight. I went walking at the refuge early on Monday morning. By the time I got to my arbitrarily-chosen spot on the Stony Bayou cross levee, it was 6:23 am and I was already sweating as I waited for sunrise. A setting full moon was reflecting off the wind-rippled water. The light breeze felt good.
It had not been quiet on my walk out. Chuck-wills-widows have stopped calling, but Pig Frogs were reliably grunting. I heard the angry threat calls of Semipalmated Plovers from somewhere out on the mudflats and Least Bitterns were calling from the marshes to the East.
I scanned the sky for nighthawks, but saw only bats.. I heard the sqwonk call of a Yellow-crowned Night Heron and caught its silhouetted shape against the predawn sky.
There’s a point in the morning, about at first light, when things get busy. The frog chorus dies out and night birds like King Rail seem to want to get in one more comment. Morning flight starts as birds leave their nighttime roosts and head out to feed for the day. The sky takes on color and day begins.
A pair of Wood Ducks flew by and I saw Great Egrets come in and land in Stony Bayou, joining the Great Blue Herons that had been hunting there all night. Great Egrets are among the earliest flyers, preceding the Tricolors, Snowies and Little Blues.
The sun rose out of a tree line on the far side of the marshes and I scanned the mudflats with my scope before starting back. There were Semipalmated, Wilson’s and Black-bellied Plovers. One of the Black-bellies was in breeding plumage indicating that it had just arrived back from its High Arctic nesting grounds. Least Sandpipers were feeding all over the flats. I watched a shorebird fly in and land. It’s tail-bobbing walk showed it to be a Spotted Sandpiper.
Walking back along the Double Dikes I kept stopping to scan the surface of Stony Bayou. On the mudflats there were Semipalmated and Western Sandpipers, Willets, Greater Yellowlegs and Marbled Godwits. Besides the herons and egrets that I had seen in the morning flight, I found Reddish Egret and five Roseate Spoonbills. Forty-six Black Skimmers were resting in the shallow water among a few Laughing Gulls and Least Terns.
By August, the breeding season is essentially over. Bird song has quieted down for the year and Fall migration is building toward its October crest. August is the month that the first of our winter nesting Bald Eagles return. It is when I expect to see the first Blue-winged Teals and when I start watching for Yellow Warblers in the Cabbage Palms along Lighthouse Road. It’s a good month to be out birding, but then, I can think of eleven other months when it’s good to be out birding.
In the unnatural world Fall will bring difficult decisions about opening schools and the stress and rancor of a Presidential election. Come down to your refuge and enjoy the quiet calmness of the tail end of Summer.
You deserve it.