Day 41, Friday May 13, 2016 Matt’s Landing and Reed’s Beach revisit. (NJ)

Day 41, Friday May 13, 2016  Matt’s Landing and Reed’s Beach revisit. (NJ)

A very new acquisition to the Cape May bird sites is a former golf course that was sold and never returned to golf. Here is a quote from their website.   (Below the two photos)

The sign for the new wildlife area. 

Matt's Landing Rd. at the end, near the many Marinas.

"It’s been several years since the old Ponderlodge Golf Course was purchased by the Green Acres Program. After being slated for use as a satellite campus for Stockton College (no deal) the old lodge and other buildings are long gone from the site. Today, the site is managed for wildlife and outdoor recreation. The old paved cart paths make it a magnet for local residents to easily explore it’s features. We’re delighted to be working with NJ Fish & Wildlife to enhance the habitat on site.”

This is a fantastic use for old golf courses that no longer are used for golf.  We did examine this site, but again, for us the walking would have been overdoing it . We moved on but saw the great potential in the site. My suggestion is to utilize, with some parameters, the cart paths for handicapped (or any one) folks. Time will tell.

A portion of the Rookery at Matt's Landing Rd.

The Island Rookery at Matt's Landing Rd.

Some of the Long Billed Dowitchers at Matt's Landing Rd.

Next was “Matt’s Landing” a sort of “harbor at the end often road” about 25 miles north. It has many impoundments for the migrating birds to use. That was exactly what it was. The three impoundments held hundreds of birds and the center piece on a small island was a Rookery of both Double Crested Cormorants and Black Crowned Night Herons. It was (see photo)filled with birds and easy visible from the road. We ate lunch here overlooking one of the ponds and watched a Bald eagle land on a nearby roof, while the Dowitchers fed in the pools.  (What a lunch spot, eh?) There were twenty one  bird species seen there . It was also a fishing site with some folks fishing from the banks, and about 5 marinas offered everything from bait to boats and charters for prospective fishermen.

Reed's beach from the end of the spit. As far as you can see
there are birds feeding  on Horseshoe Crab eggs.

The group on the top of the beach are digging in the eggs deposits,
The others on what has rolled down near  the water.

It appeared that it was threatening rain so we hustled to Reed’s Beach for the second time this week, and arrived just in time (before the rain)  to walk to the beach where the birds were feeding on the crab eggs.  The “NO Trespassing” on these beaches rule applies so we stood behind the yellow rope. It was an amazing spectacle. Ruth and i have seen many birds in our 25 years  birding, but the was the largest gathering of birds,ever. From the end of the spit  (Reed’s Beach) to the base of it is about a mile and a half, and there were feeding birds all along that beach. Even where the houses had piling over the beaches there were birds under the houses.There was a great group of Laughing Gulls with Greater Black Backed and other birds mixed in. One large group of shorebirds was still there that we had seen before .  As we took a few photos of the mass of birds the rain came down seriously so we hustled back to the truck and drove straight home.

This was indeed  birding at its best especially for the numbers, the rookery, and the migrating birds.

Here are a few bonus photos today.

A Great Egret 'strutting' across the road.

Ruth wanted to include this pair that we saw as we entered
Matt's Landing Rd.

The Bald eagle that accompanied us during lunch.

Gotta have signs! Can you correctly guess
how many "points" there are on this sign post?

Tomorrow we will head up  the coast to visit Forsythe NWR which is actually north of Atlantic City. We will get an early start (for us)  and see what that NWR has to offer. Most of it is tidal flats and marshes on the Atlantic Ocean.