Wonder at the Refuge: Relishing Unexpected Bird Encounters
Written by: Beth Schwartz
Photos: Michael Idelson
Every few months, my husband and I head down to the St Marks National Wildlife Refuge from Tallahassee to hike some of our favorite trails and to trace the changing seasons in the Refuge’s fluid landscapes and birdscapes. Thanks to the patient guidance of former St. Marks volunteers Matt and Cyndi Johnstone, we are particularly partial to seeking out shorebirds and waterfowl, so our rambles tend to center around the many pools, ponds, and other waterways that punctuate the Refuge. Often, we luck out and observe great varieties of birds wherever we wander. Other times, even though the Refuge is celebrated as a “four-season birding destination,” we see few feathered creatures at all. But sometimes when we anticipate minimal bird activity—because of the time of year, unseasonal temperatures, or cataclysmic weather-related events—we enjoy some of our most astonishing chance meetings. If our regular visits to the Refuge over the years have taught us anything, it’s that we never know what we’re going to discover, or where those discoveries might happen, but if we enter with a clear mind and keen eyes and ears, we are not disappointed. This year has been a windfall of stunning bird encounters, and some of our more exciting ones are described below.
Mid-January 2024
Last winter was especially wet and soggy, so, in January, instead of visiting the trails in the St Marks Unit, which were a muddy mess, we ventured to Otter Lake, in the Panacea Unit, which was dryer and less buggy. The hiking was lovely—but, aside from a few swooping hawks and the occasional woodpecker chatter, the birding was a bit disappointing. Undaunted, we decided to check out the birdlife around Bottoms Road before returning to Tallahassee. That decision made our day—for, there, in a canal just off the road, we saw two wood storks foraging for food in a way we’d never seen before: side by side, their beaks partially submerged in the water, they stepped together in perfect symmetry—bringing to mind synchronized swimmers, or a small-scale Busby Berkeley production.
We later learned that the wood storks were engaged in “grope-feeding”—a tacto-location strategy that involves wading through shallow water (the wading stirs up the water, and thus their prey) and moving their partially-opened beaks back and forth under the surface. When their bill touches an edible snack, it snaps shut in a shockingly quick reflex (studies have shown they can shut their bills in .25 milliseconds—which is far quicker than a human eyeblink). While the harmonious moves of these wood storks looked like some sort of elegant dance to us, the birds were, in fact, absorbed in a highly efficient feeding strategy to find and catch food, even in murky water.
Early March 2024
Whenever we have out-of-town guests, we take them to the Refuge. When my cousin visited in early March, we were careful not to overplay what we might see at the Refuge because March is a transitional time there, and a relatively quiet time for bird activity. As it turned out, the Refuge was humming with bird action: Headquarters Pond, Tower Pond, Mounds Pool 3, Lighthouse Pool—every place we stopped was thronging with birdlife.
But one viewing turned out to be particularly special. We drove to the bottom of Lighthouse Road and walked along the path toward the jetty, enjoying the familiar sight of the brown pelicans and anhinga and cormorants, each bird perched possessively on its own pole. When we got to the jetty, we could see that, way out, on the jetty’s farthest rocks, were two small birds, barely visible at that distance. It took every bit of “reach” of my husband’s 2000 millimeter camera lens to capture what we hoped would be some decent images. Until we got home and he downloaded the photos, we had no idea that we had been observing a pair of American oystercatchers, one of which was banded. A quick internet search of “banded American oystercatchers” gave us a link to an Audubon site, where we learned about and registered our sighting. We discovered that, since June 2019, other Refuge visitors have reported this pair: of the 44 reported sightings, 41 happened at the Refuge. We also realized that American oystercatchers are special, and rarely seen, birds, due to their limited diet and habitat. In fact, we read there are only 1,500 breeding pairs along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. This uncommon encounter was one of the highlights of my cousin’s visit.
Late August 2024
Last summer was brutally hot in Florida, and, in late August, we headed down to the Refuge hoping to catch a small breeze or two. From the Headquarters Pond parking lot, we hiked the left fork of the short Tower Pond Trail and took a right on the Refuge road to see if anything interesting was happening in Tower Pond. We figured the intense heat would have driven the usual pond visitors to more secluded, shaded areas. And our figurings proved correct—until we suddenly noticed a juvenile roseate spoonbill, utterly alone, fishing surreptitiously behind some small shrubs and trees within feet of the road. Before, we had only seen spoonbills in flocks: groups of them foraging on Lighthouse Pool, for instance. And once we saw a flock clustered in the branches of a large tree on the far side of Headquarters Pond, looking like rare Christmas tree ornaments. So what a special treat it was to catch this solitary junior testing his fishing prowess without any adult supervision.
Early October 2024
On October 4th, we visited the Refuge to see how it fared after Hurricane Helene’s catastrophic pummeling at the end of September. The Refuge was fortunate: unlike many other parts of the Southeast, its damage wasn’t severe, and it re-opened after a few days of clean-up. When we got out of our car at the end of Lighthouse Road, we were assailed by the unmistakable stench of dead fish. We quickly figured out the reason: storm surge had flooded Lighthouse Pool with fish from the bay, and the freshwater killed them; their corpses densely marred the margins of the pool. But the offense to our noses was soon forgotten when we noticed the huge congregation of great egrets that had descended on the pool to relish the free lunch buffet. We’d never before observed such a great number of these birds feeding together. We see great egrets all over Florida—but, typically, these dignified birds are fishing solo. This massive and efficient clean-up crew was a joy to behold—and more than made up for the nasal assault.
The truth is, we never know what to expect when we visit the Refuge. So our guiding principle is simply this: Let’s just grab our hiking boots—and be open to the possibility of wonder….