barbaraq: Blue Goose ~ Day 96

September 4, 2014 ~ Manahawkin, NJ to Mays Landing, NJ

I drove south but not very far and found a Starbucks a couple of miles from Edwin B. Forsythe NWR. I had Greek Yogurt Raspberry Lemon Parfait with granola for breakfast, delicious with 13 grams of protein but lots of sugar. All the following were in the ingredient list: sugar (in raspberry puree), granola with added cane sugar, molasses and honey and more sugar (in the lemon curd), so of course it tasted good. Maybe they could cut 1/3 to 1/2 the sweeteners???? But low in salt and only moderate in fats. Fascinating, I know....

It was already very warm, and I had the idea I would just stop by this refuge (knowing nothing about it), perhaps walk a short trail, not do much else and continue on to Cape May at the very southern peninsular tip of New Jersey, a fabled birding place with several birding venues AND the Cape May NWR.

But I was in for a surprise. Edwin B. will certainly make my Top Ten list! It was incredible... I parked and first walked a short trail through the dry woods, feeling virtuous, before I checked out the Visitor Center. The main attraction here is an 8-mile auto loop through the salt marshes. It was was full of birds...thousands of them, along with millions of flies, but I just closed the windows and turned on the air for the first time on my trip. Some of you know how I hate AC but there comes a point. At times, when I rolled down the windows to take photos, flies would be buzzing in my hair and hitting my face, but at least there weren't mosquitoes, and ticks don't fly, which is great because I am right in the tick-carrying-Lyme disease hot spot of the US.

I started driving but stopped right away at an eco-friendly boardwalk where thousands of small fiddler crabs scurried into the grass whenever one approached even though they were down in the muddy exposed areas where people don't go. And there was a breeze and no bugs here for some reason. A couple from Pennsylvania told me there were Glossy Ibises at marker #14. I saw something out of the corner of my eye, quickly turned and saw a Clapper Rail move across the mud into the grasses. My second Clapper Rail sighting ever.

Edwin B. Forsythe NWR - NJ

The marsh grasses were gorgeous in the early fall sunshine as they are beginning to change colors from green to tans and yellows. This is all tidal and as shorebirds love mud flats, they were everywhere: Great White and Snowy Herons, Ospreys, sandpipers, Short-billed Dowitchers, Glossy Ibises (a life bird for me), Canada geese, ducks, plovers, gulls and terns....and one American Avocet which is rare here and exciting the local birders.

DHC, it was like the Wastewater in size but a natural instead of shitty landscape with hundreds of grassy islands and gently moving water...

And a definition of juxtaposition was the sight of the great flashy casinos of Atlantic City in the distance on the southeast horizon beyond the vast salt marsh. I immediately thought of the poem Ozymandias as several of them are closing (the Trump casino next week) because there are now too many and who knows what will become of these "grand" buildings. Too bad...so sad....

Edwin B. Forsythe NWR - NJ

Several hours later, in late afternoon, I ended up in Mays Landing, NJ, where I stayed for the night, eating at an Olive Garden but taking most of the entree with me. Stuff does keep in my cooler as long as I have ice, and it always tastes better the next day, even cold.

I didn't pick a good spot to sleep as it was too open, and I woke several times to people walking by, or one time to some loud car music that I have never heard before...kind of ethnic, reggae, instrumental, jazzy, bouncy, compelling. Very unique. I need to seek out some window coverings for situations like this. I felt exposed but then also safe as this was a 24-hour Walmart.

Below are just four of the 850 photos I took; these four were consecutive and I have at least 150 more even after deleting several hundred.