60 
FOREST AND STREAM 
February, 1920 
A WINTER HOME FOR WILD FOWL 
THE REGIONJEMBRACED BY THE DELTA OF THE SANTEE RIVER ON THE SOUTH 
CAROLINA COAST OFFERS MANY ATTRACTIONS TO THOUSANDS OF MIGRANTS 
By ARCHIBALD RUTLEDGE 
A MONG those happenings of nature 
that are calculated peculiarly to 
impress the thoughtful mind none 
is more interesting and picturesque than 
the annual southward migration of our 
wild waterfowl. I mention this rather 
than the northward migration in the 
spring because I wish to give as accu- 
rate a picture as possible of one of the 
southern resorts to which these swift- 
winged, wise-headed folk repair when 
the autumn sets in. What they have 
done for centuries untold the American 
people are now beginning to do. Call 
it instinct in the wildfowl if you will, 
but it is an instinct pregnant with fun- 
damental sagacity. 
The southward movement of game 
birds begins with the flight of the upland 
plover in mid-summer. But these birds 
have a long journey, for they spend the 
winter on the pampas of the Argentine 
and on some of the plains of Patagonia. 
Woodcock often begin to move slowly 
southward as the summer wanes. But 
the first striking migration is the flight 
of the reed-birds. They answer also to 
the names of bobolinks, rice-birds and 
ortolans. Toward the end of August 
these yellow-clad hosts begin to march 
down toward the ripening ricefields of 
the South. Many linger in the North 
and East during September and even to 
early October, but the migration proper 
comes earlier. After these birds follow 
the coots, various shore-birds, the sev- 
eral species cf rails, and then the ducks 
and geese. How fast and how far they 
follow depends chiefly on the weather, 
but in ordinary seasons the migration 
has been completed by the first of De- 
cember. By that time the winter haven 
of which I speak has gathered to its 
warm and ample bosom its wild children. 
Those who come later are stragglers. 
One home to which they gather is the 
region which is embraced by the delta 
of the Santee River on the South Caro- 
lina coast. Its coastal width is roughly 
from Cape Romain on the south to the 
mouth of Winyah Bay on the north — a 
distance of about sixteen miles. Such 
is, in large, the fronting of the delta on 
the ocean. Its hinterland penetrates to 
a depth of about fifteen miles, though 
northwest of this arbitrary limit are 
swamps and endless watercourses where- 
to the ducks of the delta occasionally 
repair. At about 15 miles back from its 
mouth the river divides into a north 
and south branch, which flow almost 
parallel to each other to the coast. The 
land between these two branches, which 
varies in width from one to three miles, 
is the delta proper, although the marshes 
and lowlands bordering both sides of 
the two rivers are considered as parts of 
the same region. At the end of the delta 
proper is Cedar Island, a heavily wooded 
stretch of shoreland, remote and wild. 
Old Squaws by Benson 
On it are brackish marshes and ponds 
where wildfowl gather in myriads. 
These ponds are shallow and sheltered, 
and I know of no place to which ducks 
more constantly resort. Southward 
across the south branch of the Santee 
and cut off from the mainland by Alli- 
gator Creek is Murphy’s Island, a typical 
coastal island of the South Atlantic sea- 
board. It is several square miles in 
area, is wooded like the other island 
mentioned, and contains brackish ponds 
and sloughs frequented by wildfowl. 
The woods of this island contain herds 
of wild cattle and wild goats, as well 
as white-tail deer. 
Offshore from the mouths of the river 
is Bird Bank, a long low sandbar, cov- 
ered by high tides. To this singular 
place, when the sun is bright and the 
sea calm, the ducks flock by thousands. 
Observers who have hidden in barrels in 
the sand to watch the coming of the 
quacking hosts have told me that the bar 
is literally covered, while the warm salt 
waters about it are dotted with “rafts” 
of mallards, teal, widgeon and black 
duck. If the day is stormy the ducks 
stay in the sheltered ponds of the is- 
lands or in the thousands of miniature 
sanctuaries in the delta. 
T HIS whole stretch of delta country 
was once planted to rice, and had 
an intricate and admirable system 
of canals and ditches for controlling the 
water on the ricefields. Rice-planting 
has practically been abandoned in that 
section of the country, and the fields have 
gone to waste and are now grown to 
wampee, duck-cats, wild rice and other 
aquatic plants. The ditches, through the 
constant dredging of the tides, have in 
many cases not only remained, but have 
been widened and deepened until some 
of them are more like small creeks than 
ditches. Sheltered by overhanging 
marsh and jutting mud-banks, they are 
ideal day resorts for ducks. When the 
tide is high the wide fields are flooded 
and the savannahlike depressions be- 
tween the clumps of marsh are filled 
with ducks of many kinds. If the 
weather is windy and cold they remain 
all day in the ditches and fields; other- 
wise they go to the islands or out to 
sea. Invariably they return to the fields 
to spend the night. The time of their 
return depends on the stage of the tide. 
They come in at twilight if the tide is 
high then; if not, they come in when 
they know that their night haunts will 
have the proper depth of water. 
While the ducks thus move about over 
the delta, traveling 15 or 20 miles in 
as many minutes to get a meal or a 
lazy place in which to drowse, the wide 
marsh fields are full of life of a less 
restless sort. There are melancholy 
great blue herons, making the day silent 
with their immovability — their watchful 
waiting — and the night hideous with 
their raucous, gutteral calls. There are 
Worthington marsh-wrens, flitting about 
with gay impudence. Purple gallinules 
are there, and Wayne’s small clapper 
rails. The King rail is perhaps the most 
interesting bird of these marshes, found 
here in the winter in great numbers. If 
a man wishes to see Wilson snipe he 
should visit this place, for he will never 
forget the sight of flocks of these swift- 
winged game birds with their darting 
speed and incisive calls. There is a high 
sandy mound in the delta, not more than 
an acre in area. Once in a time of flood, 
when all the surrounding region was 
submerged, I found that myriads of wild 
creatures flocked to this refuge. The 
rails, the rabbits of the lowlands, and 
the raccoons took care of themselves in 
the tops of bushes, in low trees, and on 
floating masses of sedge on the borders 
of the island; but the Wilson snipe came 
to the high-land. I do not wish to be 
classed with Ananias, but I know there 
were thousands of snipe on that little 
space. They rose like the largest flocks 
of shore-birds, but with that indescrib- 
able alertness in springing and surety 
of choosing their zigzag direction of 
flight that is so characteristic of this 
species. As I sat by a fire in a shack on 
the tiny hummock I heard for a long 
while the sharp cries from thousands of 
long-hilled wanderers seeking a place on 
which to alight. All through the next 
day I watched this extraordinary con- 
gregation of snipe, and I am sure that 
before the waters began to subside the 
following night the hummock must have, 
been visited by many thousands of these 
birds. 
The most characteristic bird of the 
marshes is the red-winged blackbird. 
During the winter, when the native birds 
are joined by the hosts which have mi- 
grated from the North, it is no uncom- 
mon thing to see flocks of several thou- 
sand individuals. Rusty blackbirds con- 
sort with the red-wings, and occasionally 
purple grackles and boat-tailed grackles 
are found with them. The planters 
along the delta who have a little rice 
stacked in the open will be sure to have 
black clouds of these birds descending to 
their very doors and over their fields. 
