Our celebrated migratory Reddish Egret, Ding#1, has done it again. She left the J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) on Sanibel Island, Lee County, Florida, to spend the late summer months on the Nature Coast in Dixie County, Florida, from 2 June through 17 August 2016. In 2015 she made a similar migration to the same location at the end of May, but only stayed a few weeks.
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| Comparison of the 2015 (blue) and 2016 (pink) migration tracks of Ding#1, a satellite-tagged Reddish Egret from Sanibel, Florida that migrates to Dixie County in the late summer months. |
Based on her breeding-season movements relative to wading bird nesting colonies in Lee County, we do not think this female nested in the spring of 2016, or at least not successfully. This could be why she spent more time on her Dixie County range in 2016. Her northbound migration was direct and punctuated by only one over-night stop, seaward of Homosassa in Citrus County. Once at her “winter” destination, she used a single foraging area on the coast of the Big Bend Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in Dixie County, from which she flew five miles offshore each evening to spend the night on a small island. This pattern continued for 11 weeks.
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| GPS locations of Ding#1, a satellite-tagged Reddish Egret from Sanibel, Florida that spent 11 weeks off the coast of Dixie County from early June to mid August, 2016. |
On 18 August, just after midnight, Ding#1 started south by the light of the full moon. This is the only time we’ve ever recorded a Reddish Egret embarking on a long flight at night. We also were interested in offshore night locations, perhaps on a channel marker or stationary boat, where Ding#1 rested for at least two hours. After resuming her southbound night flight, she took one more rest just before dawn in a tree overhanging a house in a busy subdivision in Largo, Florida. After sunrise, Ding#1 made a bee line to Pine Island and may have fished there for a few hours before returning to her favorite roost near the Wildlife Drive, on the Ding Darling NWR. She completed her at least 230 mile southbound trip in less than 24 hours, including rest stops. Very impressive!
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| 2016 migration track of Ding#1, a satellite-tagged Reddish Egret from Sanibel, Florida that spent 11 weeks in Dixie County. Yellow pins highlight locations on her 24 hour southbound track back to Sanibel. |
ARCI and our friends at Ding Darling NWR were not the only ones glad to know that she made it back safely. Not even a day later, photographer Jim Bennight was on the Wildlife Drive and captured a wonderful greeting ritual between Ding#1 and her mate Ding#2. It is worth noting that Ding#1 is the only migratory individual among the 14 Reddish Egrets we have tracked by satellite from the lower Florida Keys, Florida’s Big Bend, and on Ding Darling NWR.
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| Satellite-tagged Reddish Egrets Ding#1 (left) and Ding#2 (right) greeting one another at J.N “Ding” Darling NWR, Sanibel, FL, August, 2016. |
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| Satellite-tagged Reddish Egrets Ding#1 (left) and Ding#2 (right) greeting one another at J.N “Ding” Darling NWR, Sanibel, FL, August, 2016. |
Ding#1 and Ding#2 continue to grace the Refuge’s Wildlife Drive. A few non-tagged birds also have been seen on the Refuge. We continue to track five Reddish Egrets in Lee County, plus the single bird tagged on Big Bend WMA in Dixie County. All of the tagged birds displayed their usual movement patterns during the red tide event that affected Sanibel and area waters in late November. We are monitoring them closely for any changes in behavior. You can keep up with the movements of these now-famous Reddish Egrets at: https://arcinst.org/arci-tracking-studies
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