Plus Indian Shell Mound Park

Glynn Wilson

A brown pelican heading home to Gaillard Island in Mobile Bay for the night, taken from the beach in the Dauphin Island Audubon Bird Sanctuary, with a gas rig in the background. That’s Sand Island Lighthouse too.

[Click on the image for a larger view]

by Glynn Wilson

Acting on a tip from a group of bird experts, who say there was a major fallout of birds on Dauphin Island Monday on their annual trans-Gulf migration from South America, I trekked all through the Dauphin Island Audubon Bird Sanctuary this afternoon, as well as Indian Shell Mound Park, a wild bird refuge located on the northern shore of Dauphin Island, a barrier island in Mobile County, Alabama.

Unfortunately, the fallout was over and only the usual suspects could be found. That included, in addition to the seagulls and doves, red-winged black birds, purple martins, mockingbirds and a cardinal or two — and one little blue bird that moved ahead of me on the trail for the first stretch but would never let me get close enough for a picture.

There were also a pair of flickers, although I couldn’t tell if they were the red-shafted or the yellow-shafted variety, a.k.a. the Yellowhammer woodpecker, the state bird of Alabama.

I did find a great blue heron nest and couple of juveniles just learning to fly.

Plus it was a beautiful walk (except for a loud group of kids who were not properly instructed that a bird sanctuary is sort of like a library, where you should keep it down, for dog’s sake).

In addition to the many birds which visit both areas on Dauphin Island, a wide variety of botanical species are present. The shell mound site is historically significant due to the presence of prehistoric Indian shell middens, mounds composed of discarded oyster shells. The park was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 14, 1973 and is administered by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

If the BP Deepwater Horizon oil slick were to come ashore here, it would be devastating for the local bird populations and hundreds of migratory species which stop here to rest in the spring after crossing the vast Gulf of Mexico on their trans-Gulf flight from the Yucatan and South America.

Glynn Wilson

A brown pelican heading home to Gaillard Island in Mobile Bay for the night…

[Click on the image for a larger view]

Tags: Alabama, BP's Deepwater Horizon Oil Slick, Dauphin Island, Dauphin Island Audubon Bird Sanctuary, Indian Shell Mound Park

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 4th, 2010 at 10:28 pm and is filed under Environment News, Science News, Secret Vistas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.