Watchable Wildlife and Plants
Many interesting plants and animals are found at the Grand Bay reserve/refuge. The Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve Field Journal contains checklists of the most common and/or unusual species that can be found here, as does the Audubon Birds of the Mississippi Coastal Counties. Online picture guides to common birds of the reserve can be found at Selected Summer Birds of the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve and Grand Bay National Wildlife Refuge and Selected Winter Birds of the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve . Please stop by our office to view the Exciting Sightings board to see what plants and animals have been spotted recently and to report your findings to the staff. Kids check out this book on coastal wildlife . Remember! Help keep our wild animals wild! Do not
feed the wild animals.
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Birds
Although many different types of wildlife can be found at Grand Bay, the birds are often the most visible. Depending on the season, birds can be found wading or resting on the mudflats adjacent to the saltmarshes or in the shallow waters of the freshwater marshes, nesting on the power towers or the shell middens or feeding on the fruits and insects found in the pine savannas and maritime forests. Because the reserve is located within the Mississippi Migratory Flyway, many neotropical migrants (those birds that migrate across the Gulf of Mexico during the spring and fall) use the different habitats of the reserve as stopover sites for resting and feeding. Additionally, many migrating shorebirds and waterfowl can be found utilizing the waters of the reserve. Please note that Hurricane Katrina displaced a lot of the birds that normally would have wintered in the reserve. We are watching carefully to see if their populations return to pre-storm numbers. Banding studies and bird counts such as the Audubon Society's Great American Backyard Bird Count will help us monitor the populations.
Invasive alert! Invasive bird species include the
European starling, house sparrow and the pigeon.
Winter
The reserve is home to many overwintering waterfowl and wading birds such as black-necked stilts, diving birds such as pied-billed grebes and loons and the many year-round resident species such as the northern mockingbird (Mississippi's state bird) and the northern cardinal. Both brown and white pelicans can often be seen soaring overhead or roosting on the abundant mudflats during the winter. Although fewer in number, the beautiful American oystercatcher is often seen foraging along the mudflats near Bangs Island. The thick cover of the black needlerush marshes provides hiding places for the more secretive clapper and yellow rails and least bitterns. Although some of these birds may be spotted from land, you almost always need to explore the reserve in a boat to see most of the overwintering species of birds.
The reserve's most well known winter resident is the American bald eagle. Bald eagles are the only winter nesting birds found in south Mississippi. The eagles arrive in south Mississippi in late fall and by midwinter are raising one or two chicks. Although we have not documented an active nesting site within the reserve, because we have sighted both adults and fledglings during the early spring months within the reserve, we suspect that we do have a nesting pair of eagles using the reserve. The young eagles generally fledge from their nests in late February or early March and are often gone from the area by April. Bald eagles are often confused with ospreys. To see the difference between the two species, please review the Selected Winter Birds of the Reserve . Similarly, immature bald eagles are often confused with golden eagles because they do not have the large white-feathered heads like the adult bald eagles. Check out their differences here.
American robins arrive from our northern states in huge
numbers in January. These large
populations of the reddish-orange breasted birds spend most of their day
looking for food along the roadsides and within the open fields within the
reserve/refuge. Make sure you
drive slowly as you drive past a large flock of these robins, because they have
a tendency to fly up in front of your car! Other winter visitors that you might
be lucky enough to observe are American goldfinches, peregrine falcons and the
beautiful cedar waxwings.
Spring/Summer
In the spring, the Oak Grove Birding Trail can be an ideal spot to locate brightly colored warblers, vireos and other migrants that are often so hungry after their long trip across the gulf that they are too busy to notice that you are around. The brightly-colored wildflowers of the middens also attract large numbers of hummingbirds. The first of the migrants to be on the lookout for in early spring is the purple martin. Look for these swallow-like birds flying over the bayous and marshes 'flycatching' for their food.
If you are lucky enough to arrive immediately after a spring storm has blown in from the north, you may experience what birders call a fallout. A fallout occurs when the storm front forces the exhausted neo-tropical migrant birds to 'fall out of the sky' into the closest section of woods to the coastline that they can find or even sometimes onto the large oil platforms and ships in the gulf. When this occurs, hundreds of brightly colored birds, such as summer and scarlet tanagers, can be found resting or feeding among the tree branches or manmade structures. The trees are said to look like decorated Christmas trees when this phenomenon occurs. These birds are in great need of rest and nourishment at this time, so we advise you to walk quietly and carefully through the woods at this time so as to not disturb them any more than necessary.
Although most of these migrant birds will leave the reserve and head north to their breeding grounds once they have refueled and rested, many birds such as prothonotary and parula warblers, great-crested flycatchers and blue grosbeaks nest in the reserve throughout the summer. Year-round resident birds such as eastern bluebirds, blue jays, northern cardinals and northern mockingbirds also nest throughout the reserve. Be sure to keep your eyes open for the wild turkeys that are sometimes seen around the main office!
Spring is the time that ospreys (see
picture guide) begin their courting behaviors. One of the best spots to observe this
behavior is near the transformer towers on the powerline right-of-way adjacent
to the reserve office. During this
time, the ospreys spend many hours of the day displaying to each other, mating and
building or enlarging their nests.
Their unique calls
can be heard from a great distance away from the actual nest site. The ospreys
will become very agitated if you approach too closely, so be sure to leave a
large distance between you and them.
You will know you are too close when the intensity of their calls begins
to increase. Remember! Approaching too closely to nesting ospreys could
cause great harm to the eggs or chicks in their nest. Because ospreys often fly off the nest when they are upset,
the eggs or chicks are often left exposed to the hot sun and predators. Stop
by the office to see if we have the spotting scope set up to view an active
nest from the proper distance. (Hurricane Katrina destroyed many of the
ospreys' nests, so this activity will be dependent on whether or not the birds
rebuild their nests nearby)
Other birds of prey that you might be able to spot or hear
calling include the large red-tailed hawk, marsh harrier, barred owl and
screech owl. Mississippi's smallest bird of prey, the American kestrel is also
found in the reserve.
Fall
Fall is the season for many birds from the north to return
to their southern wintering grounds in Central and South America. This time of the year, however, when
many of the birds pass through the area, they are not nearly as brightly
colored as when they returned to us in the spring. These birds are often difficult to identify during this
time, so you need to be prepared to spend a little more time identifying each
bird. Sometimes even the most experience birder will have trouble identifying
the most confusing fall warblers.
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