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WFSU Local Routes
WFSU’s Mike Plummer shows us the fateful story of a World War II era B-17 bomber that crashed at Saint Marks on a summer day in 1944. The plane went down carrying a crew of ten men…only one airman survived. Long forgotten, the wreckage was rediscovered in 2011. A historic marker is now in place so the story of these men won’t be forgotten again.
Transcript:
Reporter Mike Plummer: When I think of the St. Marks National
Wildlife Refuge, I usually think of unspoiled nature and its signature
lighthouse. But in 2011, a crew from the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found something else on the refuge that had
Shorebirds in the Misty Morning | Surveying the St. Marks Refuge
It’s a little after 6:00 am, and all I can see in my headlights is tall grass. In that tall grass is the car I’m following; off to the sides is darkness, water. My car struggles to stay straight on the overgrown levies of the Saint Marks Refuge, and my hands stay busy on the wheel. Soon, Don Morrow and I are standing in the dark hearing least bitterns and frogs, and a distant barred owl. We’re in position to count shorebirds.
Don does this roughly twice a month, based on the tides. “I’m looking for a 2.5 foot tide, at least, at the mouth of the St. Marks River,” He explains. High tide today, September 11, 2020, is at about 7:50 am. The high water on the coast will drive shorebirds to the Refuge’s interior ponds, where they’re easier to count. It’s a few weeks into winter migration, and Don is seeing more and more birds with every survey.