I have often commented that St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge is a great place to take photographs and there is always something new to see.
This was particularly true New Years Eve December 31, 2012.
My wife and I were walking along the lighthouse levee trail on the bay side when we heard a bubbling (gurgling) sound coming from the water. It was the kind of sound you hear when waves splash over a hollow log or container and the air bubbles out.
We walked down to the water but saw nothing to account for the sound. We continued on to the picnic table near the boat channel and could still hear the sound quite clearly. Other visitors were commenting about the sound as well.
Everyone agreed the sound seemed to come from the ocean and one person joked about sea monsters. Another said he thought it was a whale.
The sounds would come in groups with several minutes of silence in between. I was lucky enough to have my small pocket Nikon camera with me as a backup to my Canon SLR. It had the ability to record video as well as images and I used it several times that evening to record the sights and sounds between 16:34 and 17:43 hours.
We continued our walk around the lighthouse pool and could still hear the sound as far away as the boat ramp, which was is about 1,500 feet from the bay.
We stayed until sunset and got some great photos (see below).
When we got home I extracted the sound from the video and used the program “Audacity” to view the sound spectrum.
Here is a typical wave form.
You may listen to the sound here.
I still have no idea what this sound was, but I post it here hoping someone researching ocean sounds will find it helpful.
This was a magical evening in many ways. Here are a couple of my favorite photographs taken that evening.
