A Walk to a Birding Site

A Walk to a Birding Site

Sunday June 6th, 2021

After the usual morning routine, we took the long dinghy ride to the Lobster House restaurant.  We tied up at their floating dock and set off for the Cape May Point State Park.  By the time it was 12:30 pm, we were hot, tired and ready for lunch (but not near our destination).  After a fortifying meal, we resumed our trek, this time aiming for the Nature Conservancy place (significantly closer!)

We had a nice walk through some marshy areas with ponds.  There were overlooks and a bird hide. We did see a lot of birds but no new ones for the list.  Eventually we came out onto the beach where large areas are fenced off for bird nesting.  Interestingly, there were fake birds placed within the enclosures.  We were guessing that these were to encourage the piping plover, least terns and black skimmers to consider the area to be safe.  We saw a few “real” least terns.  Also present were a pair of oystercatchers with two fluffy chicks.  Although that isn’t one of the species that the enclosure is intended to protect, these birds seem to have taken advantage of the “gated community”. 

On the way back we walked the hypotenuse of the triangle.  This was shorter, naturally, at only two miles.  Thank goodness, I was certainly feeling that I’d been on my feet a long time.  As Mike pointed out, it will have to be a shower night, whether we need it or not.  

Gloria

38 57.034 N, 74 52.994 W

Osprey - I was photographing this bird on its nest on top of  channel marker as we took the dinghy into town. We must have been too close and it got rattled and took off. As you can see it had its eyes on us

Cape May fishing vessels at dock. We took our dinghy into the Lobster House dock just behind

Cape May is an attractive town to walk around with many "Gingerbread" style houses. 

You need a pass to access the beach in town ($8 for the day per person). However, the attendant let me walk on the beach to take these photos. The beach you access from the Nature Conservancy is just as beautiful, with hardly any people and is free!

Cape May is a great birding location particularly during migration (April-May). This is one of the tidal pools in the Nature Conservancy land close to Cape May Point. Gloria and I took a birding trip to Cape May shortly after being laid off from AstraZeneca in April 2012.

A purple martin, photographed at the Nature Conservancy. We speculated as to why an insect eater would be collecting fresh leaves ... perhaps as bedding for its nest. Gloria had an alternative theory that eating insects makes the birds constipated and therefore they need the roughage ... no one else I know would have come up with that idea!