{"id":315,"date":"2010-03-02T04:59:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-02T04:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/?p=315"},"modified":"2014-10-01T03:47:08","modified_gmt":"2014-10-01T03:47:08","slug":"a-couple-reasons-to-see-st-marks-nwr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/?p=315","title":{"rendered":"A couple reasons to see St Marks NWR"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Reason #1: There was a blizzard raging back home in NJ when I took this pic of the lighthouse at St. Marks… I was barefoot with my toes in the muck.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

<\/span>\"\"<\/a>Reason #2: More Redheads than a person could easily count. Jay from <\/span>birdJam<\/span><\/a> (Hi Jay!) has been talking up St. Marks for ages, but I hardly believed anyplace could have better ducks than NJ. Granted, there wasn’t the variety that I’m spoiled with in NJ, but I didn’t have to freeze my butt off to see these ducks, either.<\/p>\n

There is something very magical about seeing “winter ducks” with tree swallows twittering low above their heads.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

<\/span>\"\"<\/a>Reason #3: Purple Martins in February!<\/p>\n

I’ve hardly seen a Purple Martin sit still, let alone bask on the blacktop for warmth… they all looked pretty miserable because it was so cold for a Florida winter.<\/p>\n

<\/span>\"\"<\/a>Reason #4: Alligators… alligator awareness must be a learned habit. I had to keep reminding myself of their possibility… I’m pretty sure the gators at St Marks serve as an efficient population control for all the Coots that winter there.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

<\/span>\"\"<\/a>Reason #5: Palm tree-inspired views… every so often a small squadron of Brown Pelicans would interrupt the horizon and my daydreaming. White Ibis and Tri-Colored Herons were a treat, too.<\/p>\n

<\/span>\"\"<\/a>Reason #6: <\/span>St. Marks<\/span><\/a> is just a beautiful place, especially so in mid-winter at sunset.<\/p>\n

I wrote more about my visit to the refuge <\/span>here<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>here<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>here<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>here<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reason #1: There was a blizzard raging back home in NJ when I took this pic of the lighthouse at St. Marks… I was barefoot with my toes in the muck. \ud83d\ude09 Reason #2: More Redheads than a person could easily count. Jay from birdJam (Hi Jay!) has been talking up St. Marks for ages, … Continue reading A couple reasons to see St Marks NWR<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2307,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,3,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}