Date: 11/16/25 4:42 am From: Don Morrow <donaldcmorrow...> Subject: [NFLbirds] SMNWR, Friday
“How much Nature herself suffers from drought!”
Henry David Thoreau, *The Journal of Henry David Thoreau*, 19
August 1851
I stopped short of the St. Marks gate to listen to an Eastern Screech Owl.
It was still full dark, but on the cusp of dawn. continuing my drive, I
noticed a Gray Fox running along the edge of the road. I slowed the car to
watch him as he peed on tufts of grass to mark his territory. He noticed me
and darted into the woods. Even though it wasn’t quite six am, the refuge
gate was open, so I went in and pulled up to the levee gate at the Double
Dikes. It was cold and still, in the mid-forties. In the short time it took
me to open the gate, drive in, and relock the gate behind me, dawn had
begun with the faintest red glow on the eastern horizon.
It was a quiet morning until first light; just a few Barred Owls and the
squeal of a hidden Wood Duck. Then, the morning birds woke up; catbirds,
house wrens, and a few newly-arrived robins. It was time to start work. I
was out to do a mid-November shorebird survey and was unsure what to
expect. The current drought has taken hold of the refuge and most of the
ponds and pools are drying out. There is still some water left, but not
much.
Although the low water levels on the refuge may cause problems for
wintering ducks, they are apparently optimal for shorebirds. In the seven
hours it took me to complete the survey, I logged 4,475 shorebirds of 17
species. This is the highest number of shorebirds that I have recorded on
the refuge in November and the second highest number that I have ever had
on a survey. I found shorebirds on most of the refuge pools with high
concentrations on Mounds Pool 3 and Lighthouse Pool.
Wintering Dunlins have arrived and at 3,082 birds, comprised almost 70% of
the shorebirds on the refuge. Numbers of plovers, Willets and yellowlegs
have stabilized near their winter numbers and dowitcher numbers are at an
all-time high. Killdeer and Wilson’s Snipe were common on Stony Bayou 1.
Lighthouse Pool had 27 Marbled Godwit, an unusually high number at the
refuge.
Transmigrant shorebird numbers have dropped with only four Pectoral
Sandpipers on the refuge. Some of these Pectorals are coming from the
Siberian Arctic. They start their migration by flying from Russia to Canada
and they tend to be late migrants.
Ducks are coming into the refuge. I have recorded fourteen species this
month and estimated close to seven hundred ducks on Friday. Even though
these are good numbers and reasonable duck diversity for mid-November, I
don’t know if the refuge ponds can support our average winter population of
2,000 ducks.
Even if the refuge gets a winter storm that fills the pools and ponds, it
likely won’t help. To ducks, a pond is more than a depression filled with
water. Each pond develops a unique signature and does so over the summer
season as dragonflies, frogs, minnows, and mosquitos lay eggs, and as
emergent and floating-leaved plants grow in the summer sunshine. When a
duck evaluates a pond, it is looking at water depth, the presence of
aquatic plants, insect larvae, amphibians, and small fish. A dried-out
pond, newly filled with rainwater is a near-sterile environment that can’t
support wintering ducks.
Still, the sky is blue and the weather is pleasant. Come down to the
refuge and you may be able to catch those Pectoral Sandpipers before they
leave for Argentina.
