The Great SC Flood of 2015: The Creation of Lake SIEEBRP
I'd like to create a record of how the Great Flood of 2015 has affected the Sullivan's Island bird banding station. First of all, we received 27 inches of rain in three days. We missed a handful of days of banding due to the rain itself. When we were finally able to wade out to the banding station, the water was well over my waist. I arrived at our banding station location to find it a foot under water.
The banding station (pictured above) was obviously nonfunctional, so we had to choose another location. But, more importantly, we first needed to figure out how to reach the nets. I had a few kayaks stashed at my house so we packed them into my old Nissan van and went out to investigate the net sites. The water at the station 16 access path and the nature trail was over waist-deep. In some places it was four feet deep.
Above you can see the entrance to the nature path--under three to four feet of water, depending on where you are standing. We first tried to reach the nets that are closest to the beach. We found the net locations entirely under water. We were unsure if we could open any of the nets. We initially opened only two of the four nets--the ones that were on the highest ground.
Here is one of our net lanes. The water level at net 5 was approximately two feet deep. We ended up moving two of the nets and opening the other two in their original locations .
Here we are packing up all of the supplies. I thought the old Nissan was a hunk of junk but we couldn't have lived without it this week!!
We set up our new banding station within a stand of wax myrtles on high ground. The dune net location has essentially become its own island!! The nets in the dune area continue to be highly productive, although they are easily affected by wind. When the wind picks up, the birds can see the mist nets and they easily avoid them. We scouted out two new net locations today. We have lost hope for now in opening the two nets in the maritime forest. The forest net locations are still under water and it is to difficult for us to access them, anyway.
Setting up nets in the darkness at 6am comes with its own host of problems, as Jen will attest... Smilax vine is our arch nemesis, especially before it gets light. I believe the common name of Smilax is Greenbriar, but I personally prefer the (genus?) name smilax because it sounds much more sinister. Despite the flood and the resultant floating smilax pieces, we are continuing to open nets and process a variety of migratory bird species.
By the time we set up the four nets and set up our table and supplies, it is already beginning to get light out and we begin to hear the birds stirring. Many birds migrate at night and settle down during the day to rest and feed. Our hope is to process migrants that have recently landed in this area. In the early hours of the morning they begin to move around and start foraging.
Thanks so much for reading!! We hope to have more photos of Neotropical migrants posted on our Facebook page tomorrow (www.facebook.com/sullivansislandbirds). The wind was so strong today that we captured a relatively small number of birds. We are hopeful that the cold front moving through later this week will bring some large numbers of migrants with it.
Thanks: We'd like to thank our hard-working volunteers Lauren Spielvogel and Lindsay Crowe for coming out despite the flood waters. Also thanks to my friend Norma Salcedo for visiting us today and helping us out! An additional thanks to Matt Johnson for his help last week during the catbird fallout!!
Signing off,
Sarah Harper Diaz
Sullivan's Island Environmental Education and Bird Research Program
Partnered with Audubon South Carolina, Lowcountry Open Land Trust, and Charleston Natural History Society
www.facebook.com/sullivansislandbirds
