St George Island Stafe Park

I have combined Sunday’s sightings with Monday morning as we covered the same ground twice over. We know we are the ‘new boys in town’ and we are on our own when it comes to hearing and spotting wildlife. We never saw another birder in our three days there. It is a tranquil island and the purr of King-cabs and Harley’s thumping engines fitted in nicely.

St George is a long way from anywhere and after all those hours flying and a further six hours driving north we guessed that we would need a quiet day. I was surprised by the lack of Heron and Egret activity and waders in general. Also the lack of hirundines except for the very occasional Barn Swallow. Yes, there are smaller birds around and we had fun learning all over again.

We drove out to St George Island State Park where we checked out the Terns. On the water’s edge there was a good cluster of them. It was good to see restricted areas for nesting and other areas were definitely out of bounds due to Storm Michael. We photographed and identified Royal, Sandwich and a small number of Least Terns.

This is a Snowy Plover site too, but they avoided us! A warning sign says it all! A problem here for this species is the abundance of Laughing Gulls.

In the park there is a Youth Camp, ramp for boats, kayaks for fishing and beach areas too. It is well used but not over crowded. We checked every bush and tree and saw: Common Grackles, Northern Mockingbirds, the beautiful and delightfully beautiful Common Ground Doves, a female Northern Cardinal, one Osprey and a flying Great Blue Heron. A small lizard slipped away and one squirrel was in a tree.There were various calls and some birds eluded us. Two lagoons yielded nothing except the sign warning about Alligators. Also fly pasts of Brown Pelicans.

We were fortunate to see two Common Dolphins swimming only a short distance away. They are always a joy.

Returning out of the park we checked the beach nearer our accommodation and we now have one identified plover and my previous comments about seeing two Snowy Plovers was very premature. We will work on it. But we can add Ruddy Turnstones.

We’re in Best Western Apalachicola surrounded by trees and tomorrow we will walking around. We have guided trip planned for Wednesday to St Vincent Island and we will see what that brings. It is a restricted area.


I am currently running a Wordpress site as well and the photos will be on there via Michellle and her camera.