Marshland and Palms and the Apalachee Bay beyond. Near the St. Marks Lighthouse.

St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge

Despite the Earth's course around the Sun having brought the northern hemisphere into spring and the start of a new growing season, Florida was parched. April is the tail end of this subtropical climate's dry season and dry it was. 

St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) is like others I've visited, especially those created to protect waterfowl, where at least some habitat is man-made impoundments, controlled by a series of dikes, pipes and valves used to manipulate water levels. Wading birds and shorebirds also benefit from these mixtures of open water, mudflats, marshes and shoreline habitats. The water levels, however, were very low. Some impoundments were almost dry. The wetter locations, favored as roosts and feeding grounds, were often well off the roads and paths, making photography challenging. 

A photo of a Brown Pelican was one of my goals. I had no success inside the refuge, but a dock at a dinner spot brought a more people-tolerant pelican. But only a little more tolerant. He takes off from the dock in the town of St. Marks.

Birds photo ops may have been few, but a Florida Softshell Turtle (Apalone ferox) who decided to cross the road made for both an easy and interesting subject. I helped her make it safely to the other side.

St. Marks NWR is quite large, spanning over 86,000 acres of the Florida Panhandle, including 17,000 acres of designated Wilderness and 43 miles of the Gulf Coast. In the 9 days I spent there from late March into early April, I would barely scratch the surface of places to explore. 

Much of what I did learn was thanks to my friend, Karen, putting me in touch with David, a local photographer and nature enthusiast who is especially enamored with the sky's transitions from day into night (and vice versa) and the movement of the night sky, all of which he captures with time-lapse photography. David graciously took an afternoon to show me around and clue me into things like keeping my eye out for the beloved neighborhood Bobcat, where to find Osprey and Bald Eagle nests and more. (I did get a glimpse of the Bobcat, but only enough to get a blurry shot of his bobbed tail scurrying into the brush.)

David also gave me a breakdown of the various trails available to explore. Most of the dikes are walkable with little vegetation to obscure good views into the various impoundments. Such views seem to be deliberately maintained. While I was there, I watched a backhoe operator rip up shoreline vegetation. It may have been to keep a culvert clear, but it seemed more designed to keep views into the ponds open along the main road. 

Along the sunny dikes, a Monarch Butterfly imbibes thistle nectar. She did not want to share her thistle with the incoming bee.

Nobody wanted to share anything with the sunning alligator.

An open pine savannah. Lovely. So different from the continuous canopy of the Eastern Deciduous Forest back home.

The Florida National Scenic Trail runs for dozens of miles through the refuge, traversing the varied terrain of open land, including pine savannahs, to cypress swamps and pine dominated forests. I must admit that coming recently from winter in Virginia, after an hour or two in the full sun of the dikes, I found myself eyeing the forests as my own refuge. Some days, the 75°F temperatures in unrelenting sunlight actually felt a bit oppressive. And, although the bugs weren't horrible, bug spray was a must almost every day, until a stiff breeze arrived and gave noticeable relief. 

The path along Tower Pond provided occasional shady stretches that were welcome on a cloudless day.

Cinnamon Fern (Osmunda cinnamomea) fresh and clean, often found in moist to wet spots in forested environments. Its name arises from the fertile fronds that turn cinnamon when mature. It may be added to a garden if you have moist soils with in a spot that is at least partly shaded.

A Green Anole, a native to Florida, keeps an eye on me as I watch his skin turn from green to brown so he can blend in with the dead palm frond. It took him about 1 minute to complete the transformation.
 

I explored the main road as well as several dikes and hiking paths. Open pools afforded good opportunities for viewing a variety of  waterfowl, wading birds and shorebirds. The Headquarters Pool seemed the most popular spot for wading birds, perhaps because so much else was so dry. Spoonbills, White and Glossy Ibis, Common Moorhens, Great, Tri-color and Snowy Egrets hung out there - though too far back for photography. My movements along a small stretch of shoreline revealed the largest gathering of Yellow-crowned Night Herons I'd ever seen. Perhaps 12 or so adults made a gradual exodus from the pines along the impoundment edge. Their flight by ones and twos seemed to reflect the same solitary nature I've perceived in their foraging. A cloud of White Pelicans, high and distant, drifted away to the north. Much closer to the sandy ground, a Green Anole scampered off a living palmetto frond onto a dead one and then allowed me to get close enough to watch him change his disguise.   

One morning I took a stroll down a narrow shrubby path near the lighthouse hoping to find some early migrant warblers. My logic was that this short and narrow spit of woody vegetation was so close to the coast that it might be a fall-out area for exhausted songbirds just landing from their trans-gulf flight. It was very quiet. The only new arrival was a Prairie Warbler, whom I was delighted to see. As is true of many migrants, he paid more attention to the bugs he was chasing than to me.

A Prairie Warbler, recently arrived from his wintering grounds from possibly as close as central Florida or further south in the tropics.

With the birds being few, I focused on the plants. The natural range of Yaupon Holly (Ilex vomitoria) barely makes it north into coastal Virginia. Here it was among the most common of shrubs. Yaupon showed off one of its traits that makes it desirable in a garden: some of the female shrubs were still holding their bright red fruit from winter. I have read that the twigs and leaves are used to make a tea that is naturally caffeinated and has antioxidants.¹ Despite its specific name, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center indicates it has no emetic properties.²  

Yaupon Holly (Ilex vomitoria). This is a female shrub, told by the visible greenish ovary and stigma in the center of the flower. What look like 4 stamens reaching out from each petal are actually sterile. A separate male plant is needed for the production of its lovely red berries. Yaupon Holly (Ilex vomitoria). This is a male shrub. You can see the fuzzy looking pollen at the end of each stamen.

The fresh cheery berries of Yaupon Holly (Ilex vomitoria) hold through the winter.

Crossvine (Bignonia capreolata), an evergreen climber, Crossvine (Bignonia capreolata). Its bold trumpet-like flowers are designed to attract hummingbirds.
was touting its bright red trumpet-like flowers. It is so reminiscent of Trumpet Creeper (Campsis radicans) back home that it's hard to believe these aren't in the same genus. 

At times my visit to St. Marks was frustrating: having to coat myself in bug spray, the energy draining effect of the strong sunlight, finding so many beautiful birds outside the reach of my lens, their wariness thwarting my every approach, apparently being too early to catch a wave of warblers arriving from the south. I have to remind myself that every new location typically starts with a learning curve, and reconnaissance demands both   time and patience.

Relief from these frustrations often occurred when I stopped by the Visitor Center before heading home. Across from the Visitor Center parking lot stood two magnificent Live Oaks dripping with Spanish Moss. In the golden light of evening this little bit of sanctuary resonated with vespers that descended between the swaying Spanish Moss and from the surrounding forests. The chorus of prayers were sung by a Red-eyed Vireo, with his random Robin-like warble, a Cardinal determined to be heard, a Northern Parula, his soft voice rising in a trill just audible between the insistent petitions of the Carolina Wren. And farther away, the lovely kwirrr of a Red-bellied Woodpecker, a personal favorite. Their songs amid the cooling air and swaying moss drew me to the oaks where my whole being breathed in and let their voices pull me into the goodness of our Creator.

NOTES:

1.  Yaupon Holly Tea. UF/IFAS Extension, University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.  https://gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu/

2.   Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.  https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=ILVO

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