MCCLELLANVILLE — Six alligators in a pond stared like attentive students as Jestin Clark, a U.S. Forest Service biologist, stood nearby on a sandy dike and pointed toward a field of tall grass.
In the distance, a silver pipe with sprinkler heads stretched for about a thousand feet. Turn on that sprinkler and about 15 acres would fill with an inch or two of water in about 48 hours, Clark said. That's just the right amount of water to lure the eastern black rail.
These birds live in soppy places where they scurry ghost-like through the marsh. Black rails are about the same size as sparrows and have bluish-gray feathers with white speckles, colors that allow them to blend with stems and mud. Even the most avid birders rarely see them in flight — or at all.
More often, birders listen for their distinctive call, kickee-doo. Competitive birders have likened the challenge of identifying black rails to climbers who summit Mount Everest.
But rising seas and rain bombs have eaten away some of the black rail’s best breeding grounds. Developers and agriculture have confiscated even more. As a result, this already elusive bird has seen a 75 percent decline in its numbers over the past 20 years. Scientists have predicted black rails could be extinct in a few decades if nothing is done.
Which is one reason why this sprinkler in the Francis Marion National Forest is so important, along with a growing roster of similar projects along South Carolina's coast, scientists say.
Christy Hand, a biologist with the state Department of Natural Resources, is a nationally recognized expert on black rails — expertise gained from years documenting their habits in Lowcountry marshes.
About four or five years ago, she said, she began to think hard about how irrigation could help create more stable habitat for rails.
That interest eventually evolved into a collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center in the Santee Delta. In late 2020 and early 2021, the group restored old tidal impoundments to create the moist, but not-too-moist, areas that black rails like.
That spring, rail songs could be heard in Yawkey's impoundments.
A new sprinkler system sprays well water at Francis Marion National Forest to help lure eastern black rail birds Tuesday, June 18, 2024.
At about the same time, staff in the Francis Marion National Forest were talking about Tibwin Wetland Management Complex, just south of McClellanville. Clark recalled a conversation with an official with Ducks Unlimited. They agreed that some of Tibwin's parcels were a bit too high to create the kind of habitat ducks prefer.
“But he said it could be pretty good rail habitat.”
That led to a partnership with DNR, Ducks Unlimited, American Bird Conservancy and Audubon — and a novel plan.
With $330,000 in public and private funds, the groups built a 1,000-foot-long sprinkler and installed a nearby well and pump. Biologists set up gauges, cameras and audio recorders. It's the only project of its kind in the nation, Clark said.
Now it's a waiting game.
A water marker allows park rangers to record rainfall and judge when to use a new sprinkler system at Francis Marion National Forest on Tuesday, June 18, 2024.
The breeding season has begun, but no rails have shown up at Tibwin yet.
Clark isn't discouraged. He said it may take as long as 10 years to see if this experiment works.
"And even if they don't show up, other shorebirds and species will benefit," he said.
Wildlife biologist Jestin Clark navigates through swamps using an off-road vehicle at Francis Marion National Forest on Tuesday June 18, 2024.
Farther south, in the ACE Basin, the Nemours Wildlife Foundation also is irrigating some of its tidal impoundments for black rails. Hand, the biologist with DNR, said these irrigation projects are part of a larger goal to create a string of breeding colonies along the coast. This would provide some insurance if one area gets hit with a flood or storm surge.
She added that if the irrigation experiments work in South Carolina, landowners in other states could replicate the projects.
"We're really at a proof of concept stage, but I'm very encouraged by all these collaborations."
For years, scientists were mainly trying to get a handle on the severity of the rail's decline, an often depressing story. Now, she said, "we're really trying to find practical solutions."
