Blue Goose ~ Day 101

September 9, 2014 ~ Middletown, NJ to Seaford, DE

It wasn't far to Bombay Hook NWR from Middletown, but I had to detour. I had opted to take a scenic route and soon came on a sign "Water Over Road" but there wasn't, so I continued, however, several miles later saw another sign and there was...significant water. Hmmm....I started through, thinking it couldn't be THAT deep, but the van has very little clearance and I chickened out, backed up and stopped at the nearest house. A woman was taking clothes off the line. She said I should just "go through Smyrna so I wouldn't get stuck or stranded" like she had been asked this many times before. It was weird because in every other situation like this, there have been more warnings and barricades. With a truck, or maybe even with a Subaru, I would have gone on through. This was a fairly main route, not a dinky little barely travelled road so I guess locals are used to it.

WWW.GORP.COM

Bombay Hook stems from "Bompies Hoeck," the name meaning "little-tree point" given to the wetlands by a Dutch settler who bought the area from Indians for one gun, four hands full of powder, three waistcoats, one anchor of liquor, and one kettle.

At the Visitor Center, a couple of women kindly allowed me to interrupt their conversation and answered my few questions. This refuge has an auto route, again through salt marshes and woods. Very quickly, I came on an elderly woman standing at a scope looking over thousands of shorebirds. The bugs, mercifully, were mostly absent at this particular spot, probably due to a good breeze. So I, too, got out  my scope and looked through Black-bellied Plovers, trying to find an American Golden Plover; moved briefly through the numerous peeps (small sandpipers) without attempting to ID all of them (most were Semipalmated SPs); and watching dozens of black and white-plumaged American Avocets in a feeding frenzy, moving quickly through the water, head low, bills scooping whatever it is they eat....

American Avocets - Bombay Hook NWR - DE

...more egrets, herons, gulls, eagles....and the Allee House.

Allee House - Bombay Hook NWR - DE

WWW.FRIENDSOFBOMBAYHOOK.ORG

The Allee House, which is located on refuge property just east of the Dutch Neck Road/Route 9 intersection, is the refuge's historic treasure. It was built in the mid-1750's by Abraham Allee, the son of a French Huguenot (followers of Calvinism who were persecuted in France for their religious beliefs), and is considered to be among the finest examples of an early Delaware farmhouse. The house remained in the Allee family for several generations before it was sold in 1828 to pay off a legal debt. It was owned by several prominent Delaware families before being sold to the United States government in 1962. In 1971, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

I continued south down the east side of Delaware to Prime Hook, NWR. It was late afternoon and the offices were closed so I just drove some of the refuge roads, seeing more shorebirds and egrets and gulls.

Egrets - Prime Hook NWR - DE

Right outside the refuge entrance on the east, on Delaware Bay, were three large realty signs. A couple of sports cars raced by me at high speed. But for now anyway, the birds have these places to rest, nest and replenish. The salt marshes are lovely in their visual simplicity...just grasses to the horizon with occasional meandering waterways.

Still searching for a Seaside Sparrow in this habitat....

I stopped at a Walmart in Georgetown which didn't measure up to my increasingly critical review so went on a few miles to Seaford, Delaware, where I spent the night.