2011 Tour Narrative
When it comes to birding in Cape May it’s a mystery as to what will fly over next, part of what keeps birders coming back. Though unfavorable winds and intermittent rain kept the migrant land birds largely bottled-up somewhere we worked hard and pulled together an impressive list of species: both the expected and the mysterious – and had a lot of fun while doing it.
The coastal saltmarshes and barrier islands of southern New Jersey were a particular focus of this tour and they came through for us repeatedly with lots of great birds: resident specialties (like Piping Plover, Seaside Sparrow, and Boat-tailed Grackle) and a bit of the unusual (like Hudsonian Godwit and Yellow-headed Blackbird). We even made a foray over to Delaware to touch the northern edge of the ranges of Brown-headed Nuthatch and such shorebirds as American Avocet and Marbled Godwit.
We also made en effort at close study of species and turned every tern flock and mudflat full of peeps into an identification workshop. The diversity of Cape May and the Delaware Bay allowed us to spend days within a small area and hardly see the same things twice.
We started off early getting out of Philadelphia before the civilian population woke and drove across the state of New Jersey to the vast saltmarsh of Brigantine on the Atlantic coast. With the skyscrapers of Atlantic City in the background, the pools of Brigantine are legendary for attracting clouds of shorebirds and other waterbirds and numerous rarities throughout the year. Hudsonian Godwit and Black Terns were a nice surprise and we also got to see such eastern specialties as White-rumped Sandpiper and close-up views of Seaside Sparrow. A Clapper Rail and a Sora were skulking the muddy edges of the grass. A young male Yellow-headed Blackbird was an excellent sighting in a flock of Red-winged Blackbirds feeding close to the van until the leader (allegedly messing with his camera) accidentally knocked into the horn and scared them all off. Peregrine Falcons, thousands of ducks and sandpipers, and even a few warbler species rounded out the day and we were in Cape May late that afternoon.
There wasn’t much of a warbler flight the next morning. Southeast winds and intermittent rain were having their way. However, as we stood there on the dike at Higbees Beach watching a few Black-and-white Warblers and a Northern Waterthrush we were not alone. A White-eyed Vireo gave us a few bars, a Barred Owl piped up from deep in the woods, and all the while a few Carolina Wrens were firing back and forth across the field. Nothing can dampen the spirit of the Carolina Wren.
For the next couple of days we worked Higbees, The Point, The Meadows, The Beanery and other iconic Cape May locations. Though the big numbers of songbirds and raptors never really arrived, we scraped up a few warblers, saw most of the regular hawks and falcons (and lots of Osprey!) and spent a lot of time near the beach with the terns. The difference between Common and Forster’s Terns should all be very clear to everyone now. On one afternoon we hopped aboard a boat in Cape May Harbor for a ride out into Jarvis Sound and the surrounding saltmarsh between the Cape May mainlaind and the Wildwood barrier island. We got out into the middle of this remarkable environment and had good looks at Tricolored Herons, Yellow-crowned Night-Herons and such saltmarsh denizens as American Oystercatcher and Boat-tailed Grackle, but the star of the show (and what’s been keeping the boat in business after the summer beach tourist season) was the adult female Brown Booby that has been feeding in the sound and is frequently seen perched on a marker buoy. We had great looks at it both flying around elegantly and perched awkwardly.
We put Cape May aside for twenty-four hours, taking the ferry across the bay to Delaware to explore the Delaware Bay shore from the other side. We began at Cape Henlopen State Park where, in the pines and dunes, lies the northern range of Brown-headed Nuthatch. It was certainly a highlight, though somehow it didn’t seem quite hard enough to find; several were coming to the bird feeder in front of the nature center! From there we went north up the coast to Bombay Hook, a complex of forests, fields, and marshes, both saltwater and freshwater easily accessed by a loop road and the regular Atlantic coastal range limit of such species as American Avocet and Marbled Godwit (we saw both). We were also treated to a Brown Thrasher feeding in the grass of the visitor center and flocks of Bobolinks – those birds flying high over Cape May had to land somewhere! Bald Eagles were flying around and the mudflats were rife with shorebirds.
We left Delaware the next morning after discovering that the area behind our hotel in Dover is actually not too bad for holding a few species of warbler. The ferry ride back across to Cape May gave us some good looks at Northern Gannets and began our gull workshop, which we continued on the beach at The Meadows with various ages of Great Black-backed and Herring Gulls to sift (the first-cycle Lesser Black-backed Gull was the test). The workshop finished at Stone Harbor Point with a second year Lesser Black-backed Gull in the flock, though it didn’t last long as we were distracted by a much cuter Piping Plovers. We ended our time in Cape May with one more saltmarsh scan, a potpourri of heron species, and it was done. The trip was over that night in Philadelphia with an Italian dinner: a great week with a fun and good-humored group of people.
- Jon Feenstra
Updated: October 2011