Fall Migration the Hard Way
October 16th 2007
It’s been more than a week since we got back from our fall birding trip to Dauphin Island. The island is my very favorite birding place in the world. It has the laid-back rhythm of an earlier time. It is steeped in history and legend. In spite of steady incursion of coastal development, it still is a place of great natural beauty, and it’s a place where we can meet old friends from near and far. But this fall it was just not a place to find birds. Strange weather patterns, faltering fronts, and maybe a good dose of hoodoo kept the spectacular flights of migrating passerines from keeping their appointment with the Pine Woods Audubon birders.Lin and I arrived early Friday and quickly realized that there were very few birds around. We walked through the famous Shell Mound Park seeing only resident Mockingbirds and Carolina Wrens. Suddenly there was a flash of color and we saw in quick succession a female American Redstart, a Black-and-white warbler, and a Yellow-throated Vireo. This is it, I thought, the start of a good day on the Island.I thought wrong. The day turned hot and practically birdless. We shook things up by heading down to the west end of the Island where inlets cut by Katrina still attract shorebirds. We had better luck there, including two large plovers that I felt sure were of two different species—American Golden Plover, a rarity at this time and habitat, and Black-bellied Plover, the default big plover for the island. The wind changed late that afternoon, but the birds did not come.That night at supper I announced confidently, “Birds tomorrow—waves of them.”Saturday was a lovely island day with sunshine, mild temperatures, and no birds. In fact we found the very same birds in the same places that we had found them on Friday. Things were so slow that we took naps in the afternoon. But I was still working on the two plovers. Lin and I kept going back, looking for clues to their identities, and each time we went back to that inlet we saw a few more species of shore birds. We also found the odd Osprey, or Reddish Egret, and even a nice male Peregrine, but this was without a doubt the worst birding on the Island I have ever seen during migration.That night at our compilation I predicted that our group total would be only 55 species. I was shocked when we tallied 95 species, not a bad fall number at all. We didn’t see what we expected to see, buntings and vireos and warblers dripping from the trees. The very fact that these birds were absent pushed us to find the hidden, hard birds that may go unnoticed and uncounted when waves of migrants are present.Sunday the group added five more species for a very respectable total of 100. Lin and I rode the early ferry over to Fort Morgan to see Bob and Martha Sargent and their merry band of banders. They were just starting their fall banding session, and things were as slow on that side of the bay as they were on the Island. This kind of start could depress the most chipper brownie scout, but the Hummer-Bird Study guys were their usual good-natured selves. No matter how good or bad today is Bob expects a better tomorrow.Lin and I traveled on to Gulf Shores then up Alabama 59 to Interstate 10 on our way to visit our friends Barry and Georgia. This is not the shortest, nor even the most scenic route to Mobile, but it takes you through the granddaddy of all Alabama fruit stands, the Burris Farm Market in Loxley. As I sat eating a grand Burris strawberry shortcake smothered with soft-serve, I thought back to our hard weekend of birding. We had a great time visiting with other birders and we certainly had plenty of time to visit. Every bird was hard, but each bird was appreciated. And they all led to that fantastic shortcake. At the time, I couldn’t think of a better way to spend an October weekend.I still can’t.Airport Marsh, Dauphin Island (L. Harper, Photographer) 
