Date: 5/1/25 5:48 pm From: Don Morrow <donaldcmorrow...> Subject: [NFLbirds] May at SMNWR
It is May now at St. Marks NWR. Spring migration is rushing to a close as
the last northbound birds move through the refuge. Our summer breeders are
nesting and some are already feeding young. Swamp dogwood and wild rose are
blooming. The Chuck-wills-widows, loudly calling their name out into the
predawn darkness, have been joined by Common Nighthawks with their peenting
calls. The heat of summer is creeping in and bull gators are still
bellowing in the marshes.
April was a solid month of migration. Just over five million birds crossed
the refuge, and local birders recorded twenty-six species of warblers.
There was also a sighting of a Black-whiskered Vireo. The warblers were
headed north to breed. The vireo was also headed north, but was supposed to
stop in the mangrove swamps of Cuba or the Florida Keys. Sometimes, migrant
birds get a little exuberant and overshoot their mark.
Spring migration drops off quickly in May with attendant decreases in
migrant diversity. It is likely that a million birds will still be
migrating in the first half of the month, but less than ten species of
warblers will be among them. At this point in Spring migration, the
refuge’s migrants are primarily birds bound for the boreal forests and
arctic coasts of Canada.
Shorebirds are also migrating through the refuge. One of the later
shorebird migrants, not usually seen before May, is the White-rumped
Sandpiper. It is similar in appearance to many other sandpipers, but has a
distinctive white rump that is visible when it flies. It is a consummate
long-distance migrant, travelling between the Canadian High Arctic and
Tierra del Fuego at the tip of South America. Some go even further south
and may fly ten thousand miles during Spring migration. White-rumped
Sandpipers are long jumpers, staying in the air for up to sixty hours at
altitudes that exceed ten thousand feet, while making flights of up to
2,500 miles. At the altitude a White-rumped Sandpiper is flying, it can see
for a hundred miles in all directions.
A White-rumped Sandpiper that you see at the St. Marks refuge in May might
have spent up to five days feeding on mud flats in the upper reaches of the
Amazon River in Brazil, gaining fat reserves before launching in the early
evening on a multi-day flight. It would have flown all night and through
the next day high over tropical forests and mountains in Columbia and
Venezuela and then begun a night crossing of the Caribbean Sea as the sun
set. During its second day in flight, it would have crossed the Cayman
Islands and seen a second sunset as it crossed Cuba. Flying in the darkness
over the eastern Gulf, paralleling the Florida peninsula, it would have
sighted St. Marks near sunrise and landed to feed.
There is experimental support that shows that birds dream. Do they also
have a sense of awe and wonder? Crossing the Caribbean Sea in the cold
clear air on a May night, listening to the call notes of other migrating
sandpipers, does this bird look down and admire the moon’s reflection on
the sea below?
Spring Migration 2025 is winding down and there will be no commemorative
t-shirts. Come down to St. Marks before it’s over. There are some
remarkable birds here.
