Friends President's Message

Text and Alligator Photo Courtesy Katasha Cornwell. Board Photo Courtesy Allen Van Brunt

Reflections on Endings and New Beginnings

As the title of our newsletter suggests, it's important to take time to reflect. The end of the year is a moment for many of us to look back over the past 366 days (it was a leap year) and evaluate what we have achieved, while also setting goals for the upcoming year. In this edition, you will find various reflections on endings and new beginnings as well as surprises that can occur throughout the year.

This year, we lost some remarkable friends, but through their generous legacies, they continue to support the vital work at the Refuge. We also experienced considerable turnover on our Board of Directors. However, we are ending the year on a strong note with a dedicated group of individuals who are committed to serving you and St. Marks NWR. Together, through your donations and the efforts of our Board, we have accomplished so much this year, including:

• Conducted outreach to Congress to emphasize the importance of fully funding the National Wildlife Refuge System
• Enhanced our social media outreach to keep you updated with the latest news and events.
• Revamped the website at no cost, thanks to our amazing webmaster, Chris Akins.
• We're bringing back the Sunday talks, starting with the one and only Don Morrow.
• Supported the Refuge's need for a new tram to transport tour-goers, students, and other guests.
• We are in the process of finalizing the acquisition of the last two pieces of an important archaeological site.
• Continued funding for the Lighthouse Keeper position, which allows for tours of the Keeper's Quarters almost every weekend. The Keeper and his team have achieved outstanding visitation numbers.
• Continued support for biological interns, as well as an education intern who is now a full-time employee at the Refuge.
• Continued support for the preschool program, reaching children in our community.
• Set new goals and objectives to guide us into the next year.

We have heard that many of you would like to receive more regular updates on your membership status, along with reminders about renewal. In the new year, look out for information on this topic. Our goal is to ensure that everyone is aware of their membership status and can renew either online or by mail. We also want to understand your preferred method of receiving membership renewal communications in the future. For those comfortable with technology, becoming a member of the Long Leaf Society through recurring donations will be easy, and you can manage your account online if you need to update your payment method.

Here’s to a prosperous New Year for our Friends, the Refuge, and the Board of Directors. We hope you enjoy some rest and relaxation, as well as quality time with family and friends during this holiday season. Don’t forget, this is the perfect time to invite your friends to become our Friends!

Refuge Report

Text Courtesy Katasha Cornwell. Retirement Photo Courtesy Lori Nicholson

One significant change at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge this year is the retirement of Terry Peacock, who has served as the Refuge Manager. At the end of December, she will retire after 41 years of dedicated service in the Refuge system and to the public. Over her impressive career, Terry has achieved so much and has been a guiding light for her staff.

She has overseen the transfer of several thousand acres of land into Refuge management, with the most recent addition being the New Port unit. Terry has also supported important efforts in endangered species recovery, mentored numerous interns, and has been a wonderful friend to the Friends.

We wish her all the best in this new chapter of her life. While we will certainly miss her as our manager, we look forward to seeing her around the Refuge as a visitor.

There are three important new developments at the Refuge. In January, the Refuge will welcome three new biology interns, made possible by contributions from the Friends. You can look forward to introductions to these young adults in our next edition.

Additionally, the Headquarters Pond trail has received a fresh new look. It is now accessible and features a butterfly garden. The Friends organization plans to support further upgrades, including new interpretive signage, in the near future.

Last but not least, we welcome our newly arrived flamingo for as long as our pink-feathered friend plans to grace us with its presence. See the latest on our website here: https://stmarksrefuge.org/blog/has-pinky-returned/

Sunday Refuge Talk Series

 Sunday, Jan. 12, 2025 “Winter Birds at St. Marks NWR”  

2 pm- 3:30 pm Nature’s Classroom

1255 Lighthouse Rd., St. Marks NWR.

Free and open to the public.

Text and Photo Courtesy Robin Will.

About the Speaker – Don Morrow received his undergraduate degree from the University of Florida and his master’s degree in Environmental Studies from Antioch University. He has worked as a field biologist and as a naturalist for Morningside Nature Center in Gainesville and for the Audubon Society of New Hampshire. An avid birder since childhood, Morrow has led field trips locally for Birdsong Nature Center, Apalachee Audubon Society and the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge. Before retiring in 2016, he worked for the Trust for Public Lands for thirty-three years and proudly purchased 100,000 acres for conservation, including one entire National Wildlife Refuge – Bayou Teche in Louisiana. And he could walk on his work!

He’s a Lifelong Birder and Why   

Since he was 8 years old, Don Morrow has been looking at birds. Both his older brother and mother would point birds out to Don – often identifying them incorrectly, but he thought their attention and admiration for birds was cool. When he and his wife Ann moved to Tallahassee in 1984, St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge was the closest birding spot for him and some 40 years later, he still thinks it’s the best birding destination in the area.

I met Don in the 1980s and enjoyed talking birds, plants, anything else found in Florida’s natural habitats, and he often led birding excursions and gave talks as a refuge volunteer. So, I asked him “What is important to you about educating people about wildlife, especially birds?” He responded that it’s vital to convey the message that wildlife is something of value. Birds are easy to find, even without binoculars or a guidebook, so they are great ambassadors to catch people’s attention. “You can take it as far as you want to, just know that birds are of value.” He takes his role as refuge guide seriously, explaining that he wants to expose as many people to the refuge’s inhabitants and landscapes as possible, so they will become “more invested in ‘their’ refuge.”

I also asked, “How long have you been leading wildlife/birds tours on the refuge?” He replied 25 years, so between touring and surveying the refuge for birds, he is an expert! When he retired from the Trust for Public Lands in 2016, he approached wildlife biologist Joe Reinman and asked what he could do. Joe replied, “conduct the shorebird surveys and seasonal waterfowl surveys.” Now, eight years later, Don is surveying migratory and resident birds several times a month. So, if you see a car creeping around the refuge impoundments, that’s Don, contributing his vast knowledge of birds and collecting data for the refuge!

A longtime member of the Friends of St. Marks Wildlife Refuge, Don served on the Board of Directors and always “promotes joining the Friends and visiting the Nature Store in the Visitor Center.” He ends his tours by saying “I hope you’ve enjoyed the opportunity to visit your refuge.” Thank you, Don!

Registration requested to help with a headcount.

REGISTER HERE:

https://stmarksrefuge.app.neoncrm.com/nx/portal/neonevents/events?path=%2Fportal%2Fevents%2F11966.

Join Us in Making a Difference: Opportunities Await!

Text Courtesy John Haines

Do you enjoy spending time at St. Marks Wildlife Refuge? Would you like to get more involved with the activities at the Refuge? Do you have 8 hours a month to work mostly from home with the Friends of St. Marks and Refuge staff? If so, you can help make a difference by supporting the important conservation and education mission of the Refuge.

The Friends of St. Marks Wildlife Refuge, an award-winning support organization affiliated with the Refuge, is looking for a dedicated and detail-oriented volunteer to play a vital role in maintaining the financial health of our nonprofit organization. As a member of our all-volunteer team, you will be responsible for maintaining accurate financial records, tracking revenue and expenses, and providing financial reports using our cloud-based accounting system.

Prior experience with budgets, nonprofits, and software is helpful but not necessary. If you can order from Amazon, you can handle our software. Additionally, you’ll receive ongoing training and support from experienced volunteers and professionals currently managing Friends' finances.

If you are interested in making a meaningful investment of your time and talent in a collaborative organization focused on conservation and the environment in North Florida, we would love to hear from you. Please contact John Haines at FSMWRbkpr@gmail.com with a brief overview of your background and why you want to get more involved with the Refuge. We will get back to you to arrange a time to discuss this opportunity to make a difference.

Friends Roll Out New Website

Text Courtesy Chris Akins

If you’ve visited our website at https://stmarksrefuge.org in the past few weeks, you may have seen it has been updated.

We completely rebuilt the site with the primary goals of a better user experience for you and to make it easier to find what you’re looking for.

Here is a list of improvements:

• A dedicated events page. On our home page, you’ll see the next few upcoming events with specific details on registering or attending, including lighthouse keepers' quarters open houses, wildlife tours, meetings, and festivals. You can also click https://stmarksrefuge.org/events to see all upcoming scheduled events.
• Find what you’re looking for with the new search function. Our new site has a dedicated search feature missing from our old site. You can search for any term; if it is on our website, it will be displayed for you.
• Stay informed on birding reports and other articles on our consolidated blog page. By placing them on a dedicated blog page, we’ve made it much easier for you to find our most recent articles, including birding reports, refuge rambles, and more. The most recent articles will be at the top. You can filter by the types of articles you want to read or search by terms or authors. We will also post articles more frequently to keep content fresh for you.
• Better communications. We can now quickly share information with you if an emergency arises - think approaching hurricanes - with a notification bar at the top of the website that outlines refuge closures or other details you may need to know.
• Subscribe to updates and donate much more easily. We’ve made it easier to contact us, subscribe to email updates, or join the Friends with a one-time or monthly donation.
• The Nature Store has a new online space. You can visit the Nature Store online at https://store.stmarksrefuge.org. You can browse and make purchases as you did before. All online transactions are safe and secure. 

As with any new site, there may be broken links as we transitioned to the new platform. If you come across any, please email board member Chris Akins at akinschris440@gmail.com and he will have those links fixed.

Best of all, this website was built and donated to the Friends.

Wonder at the Refuge: Relishing Unexpected Bird Encounters

Text Courtesy Beth Schwartz and Photos Curtsey 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 fresh water killed them; their corpses densely marred the margins of the pool. But the offence 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 the 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…. 

Monarch Festival Recap Photo Gallery

Text and Photos Courtesy Katasha Cornwell

The 2024 Monarch Festival welcomed around 3500 visitors who got to interact with many educational organizations, tag butterflies, tour the Lighthouse Keeper's Quarters, and get tatted up at the Friends booth. Here are a few highlights from the Friends table, where coloring your own butterfly mask was also a highlight.

Friends of St Mark's Wildlife Refuge Supporter Portal

Manage Your Account Here

https://stmarksrefuge.app.neoncrm.com/login

Become a member of the Longleaf Society today by clicking this graphic. Your monthly giving provides a tremendous boost to the Friends of St Marks Wildlife Refuge to keep providing the programs and services you have come to expect from this award winning organization.

We Encourage our Friends to SHARE!

As almost all of you know, the Friends give 100% of their support to the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge. An important way for you increase that support is to share our message. Therefore, when you get this newsletter, we encourage you to send it on to a friend. You can share it via email or through various other social media. Here's the link to the Friends Newsletter page. Scroll to the "current" entry and copy the link.

Text Courtesy Phillip Pollock

Bird Reports Assist Visitors

Don Morrow, St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge volunteer and expert birder, creates concise bird-sighting reports on a week-to-week basis. Read his current and past reports here.

Photo Courtesy Katasha Cornwell

Have you considered including the Refuge in your will? The Friends of St. Marks Wildlife Refuge can provide information and guide you through the process. Just call the Refuge at 850-925-6121, and ask to be contacted by the Friends Board of Directors, or email us.

Reflections newsletter is a benefit of membership for Friends of St. Marks Wildlife Refuge.

It also serves as an important supplement to

the Friends' website.

Both the newsletter and the web site provide members and the public information about volunteer activities and events at the Refuge.

Reflections editor: Katasha Cornwell