Swarms of Swallows
The Cape Trail at Santee Coastal Wildlife Management Area
Santee Coastal Reserve, McClellanville, SC,
February 25, 2024,
45° F,
Sunny, Calm wind
Hiking along the dikes at Santee Coastal Wildlife Management area.
The managed impoundments of Santee Coastal Reserve are magnets for waterfowl and shorebirds, but the 24,000 acre wildlife management area is infamous for the clouds of mosquitos and flies that seem uniquely aggressive.
Tree swallow, Tachycineta bicolor, at Santee Coastal Wildlife Management Area
The abundance of insects also means swarms of these handsome acrobatic fliers. Tree Swallows, Tachycineta bicolor, feed from dawn to dusk on flying insects, including flies, dragonflies, bees, wasps, beetles, butterflies, and moths. They also like ants, spiders, mollusks, and roundworms. They chase their prey in the air, usually foraging less than 40 feet from the ground.
You can be clipped by swallow wing while walking on the dikes in the spring and fall as the flocks are passing through between their winter and summer residences. Our summer swallows are barn swallows, Hirundo rustica, which build muddy cup ness in barns or under docks. They have a longer, forked tail, dark rump, and an orange throat and forehead.
Blue-winged teal, Spatula discors, at Santee Coastal Wildlife Management Area.
Blue-winged teal, Spatula discors, are also spring and fall visitors, more common in our area in mid-March to April than these February visitors at Santee Coastal. They dine on midge larvae, crustaceans, clams, snails and vegetation by dipping their bill into the water, submerging their entire head, or going a little deeper and tipping up their rear to reach for prey or vegetation deeper underwater. We therefore group them as dabbling ducks, as opposed to diving ducks, such as buffleheads and hooded mergansers, that dive all the way under the water to feed. You can also tell if you have a dabbler or diver by the way they take off; dabbling ducks spring into the air, while diving ducks patter across the water.
Blue-winged teal, Spatula discors, at Santee Coastal Wildlife Management Area.
Blue-winged teal, Spatula discors, look like ducks but are more like a sandhill crane or clapper rail. They have fairly long, gangly legs and don’t have webbed feet. When on land they actually look kind of chicken-like. They are found pretty much everywhere there are plants growing in the water, such as freshwater wetlands, prairie potholes, swamps, marshes, the edges of large lakes and suburban park and sewage ponds. Interestingly, iNaturalist shows a conservation status indicator that the breeding population is possibly extirpated in South Carolina, although their populations appear to be stable, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey, and they are considered to be a species of low conservation concern. They aren’t hunted as much as ducks because apparently they aren’t very tasty.
American alligator, Alligator mississippiensis, lurking at Santee Coastal Wildlife Management Area.
Of course ducks and coots aren’t the only animals floating around in the impoundments.
There are also beautiful swamp and upland pine habitats throughout the reserve.
Yellow-rumped Warbler, Setophaga coronata, at Santee Coastal Wildlife Management Area.
The upland pine areas were full of the distinctive sharp chips of warblers. The Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle Warbler) is the only warbler able to digest the waxes found in bayberries and wax myrtles. You will see them in the outer tree canopies at middle heights, darting out acrobatically to catch insects in the air. They have also known to pick at insects on washed-up seaweed at the beach, out of spiderwebs, and off piles of manure.
