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CAPE MAY LIGHTHOUSE
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BRANT GEESEDay 8 the First Full Day at Cape May
It is a wonderful place and we are only talking about the birding facets of the area. Our first step was to begin to become familiar with the many roads and byways that are here. There are few that go in E-W, N-S true direction, so getting a good map (which we had) and orienting to them was important. Use the GPS you say? Well, if wildlife areas had addresses they would be on the GPS system, but they are not! Neither are many campgrounds, so for us it is not too practical. But… maps and local input are helpful.
We started at the Cape May Birding headquarters, a converted old home where the gift shop and the ‘cerebral’ part of this great birding center are located. It is not pretentious like some homes at the Cape. It was bustling with activity. They were already into registering people for a bird count called the World Series of Birding on May 9th. Registration of hundreds of people whose collected donation based on their count for that day will go into a fund to aid th.JPG)
e birds. The same Marathon in Canada is called Baillee.
We took some suggestions for the staff and headed to a State Park that was on the Ocean and has a variety of habitats. We actually went back there a second time at lunchtime. Here is where the fall migration of raptors is seen and the counts during those days often reach thousands per specie in a day. That is some sight. There is a huge board walk and platform for the counters and watchers. It was not very crowded today. We saw some birds but not volumes.
We started at the Cape May Birding headquarters, a converted old home where the gift shop and the ‘cerebral’ part of this great birding center are located. It is not pretentious like some homes at the Cape. It was bustling with activity. They were already into registering people for a bird count called the World Series of Birding on May 9th. Registration of hundreds of people whose collected donation based on their count for that day will go into a fund to aid th
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e birds. The same Marathon in Canada is called Baillee.We took some suggestions for the staff and headed to a State Park that was on the Ocean and has a variety of habitats. We actually went back there a second time at lunchtime. Here is where the fall migration of raptors is seen and the counts during those days often reach thousands per specie in a day. That is some sight. There is a huge board walk and platform for the counters and watchers. It was not very crowded today. We saw some birds but not volumes.
SNOWY EGRET
A large double masted housihg for Purple Martins was a center piece filled with nesting Martins.
Actually there were few people over all the areas that we traversed. The weather was terrific, with full sun and at about 82 F with a slight SE breeze and it stayed like that all day... We then tried a coastal area that led us on a trail through the woods to the beach. This was strangely devoid of any birds at that time of the day (10:00AM) so maybe we will try that again earlier in the day.
Actually there were few people over all the areas that we traversed. The weather was terrific, with full sun and at about 82 F with a slight SE breeze and it stayed like that all day... We then tried a coastal area that led us on a trail through the woods to the beach. This was strangely devoid of any birds at that time of the day (10:00AM) so maybe we will try that again earlier in the day.
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Cape May-Lewes (DE) Ferry
There are some 20-30 Birding hotspots to seek out and locate the birds so each day we will try to visit 4-5 if possible in the 6 days we have allotted to Cape May.
After lunch it was up along the East Coast (Atlantic shore) and a place called Shore Drive. There were some birds in the bays and ponds here, notable more Black Brant Geese, and a small flock of Buffleheads. Ruth has some good shots of the former. This road continued north to the “Wildwood” communities namely; Wildwood Crest, Wildwood and North Wildwood where the “Do Wop” decor caught on in the 1950’s. We saw some of that.
Then it was home for a brief time off, and then a pork loin on the grill, the rest of that 5 berry pie and a baked potato outside. It was great at 75 degrees listening to the birds in the close by trees.
We did a short tour of a nearby area called the Villas, that looked promising, but there were just local birds and nothing any different. Tomorrow we will explore some of those yet to be seen areas. It is still scheduled to be very fine weather (sunny and 75-85 F)
After lunch it was up along the East Coast (Atlantic shore) and a place called Shore Drive. There were some birds in the bays and ponds here, notable more Black Brant Geese, and a small flock of Buffleheads. Ruth has some good shots of the former. This road continued north to the “Wildwood” communities namely; Wildwood Crest, Wildwood and North Wildwood where the “Do Wop” decor caught on in the 1950’s. We saw some of that.
Then it was home for a brief time off, and then a pork loin on the grill, the rest of that 5 berry pie and a baked potato outside. It was great at 75 degrees listening to the birds in the close by trees.
We did a short tour of a nearby area called the Villas, that looked promising, but there were just local birds and nothing any different. Tomorrow we will explore some of those yet to be seen areas. It is still scheduled to be very fine weather (sunny and 75-85 F)
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