Blue Goose ~ Day 99

September 7, 2014 ~ Rio Grande, NJ and back to Rio Grande NJ

I love the mornings after I find a place to get a bit cleaned up. The air is balmy, the sun rises now about 0630, people are off and about to work and school buses are everywhere.

Cape May is a birding mecca, perhaps most famous for the warbler migration in the spring. I didn't have particulars as to exactly where to go so just headed for Cape May Point State Park at the very tip of the peninsula since I had seen impressive eBird reports from that location.

Cape May (the town) was charming, a town where the brash Northeast meets the more gentile South...wonderful houses, generous porches with people actually sitting on them, old shade trees and bricks and falling leaves, people slowly strolling, small restaurants, flowers...

Of course it was slightly overcast and early morning and September so maybe it's crazy in the high days of summer.

There was no entrance fee at the State Park - just beaches, a lighthouse, hiking trails and the annual Hawk Watch in progress at the end of the parking lot, from a deck overlooking a pond. Several people with scopes and binoculars were scanning the skies, noting what they saw on a white board. I talked with Margeaux who told me all about the Cape May Observatory and what was going on and said I should to go talk to Pete Dunne who was also hawk watching and whom I had noticed immediately. I have read much of what he has written about birds and love his style. She and several other tanned and attractive young women were working seasonal jobs in Cape May for a few months.

I just don't go up to people easily, so was standing around absorbing the scene when Mr. Dunne approached and asked if I had any questions. We talked a few minutes, mostly about books. He recommended Hemingway's A Moveable Feast which he was re-reading. Just a very nice, very knowledgable and kind person, interested in people as much as birds, especially if those people also loved birding.

Hawk Watch - Cape May Point State Park - NJ

I walked the Blue trail. The fragrant Sweet Autumn Clematis had totally covered the trees and shrubs in some places. It is a native of Japan and beautiful but destructively invasive.

Blue Trail - Cape May State Park - NJ

Sweet Autumn Clematis - Cape May Point State Park - NJ

I didn't see birds in the woods; the action lately is the shorebirds and, here at Cape May, birds in the sky. I learned a lot about looking up and was amazed at the ID skills of these advanced birders who could immediately recognize both large (ospreys/hawks) and small (bobolinks/tree swallows) birds and who were very willing to answer questions or just carry on a running commentary on what they do....what to look for...what the differences are...how to recognize distinctive field marks, flight and flap patterns, vocalizations...

I listened to an hour-long Raptor session, taught by two women, both of whom had recently graduated from college. This was a nice change from the usual male-dominated authorities at birding events. One of these girls had baby blue toenail polish and a toe-ring; they had pony tails and wore shorts...were young and tan and just beginning their post-college lives. And good at what they were doing. One had a large "quiet" tattoo of a Great-horned Owl in her thigh..."quiet" in that it was tasteful and not at all garish. Another girl grew up in Michigan and was here for two months working on Monarch butterfly research. Part of what she does is drive a specific route three time a day for a couple of months counting Monarchs. She had hoped to have a career in the Performing Arts and was expecting an internship at Sundance but that didn't happen. Since she had always loved butterflies / caterpillars and had, in fact, raised 500 of them in her room on her parents' farm one summer, she thought about what she would really like to to, so she began researching, got this job and loves it of course. Who wouldn't? Cape May is wonderful...beaches, birds and butterflies, ongoing interesting informal teaching, great birders, good seafood, perfumed air, sunshine, and a variety of coastal flora.

As I was leaving the parking lot, I heard a loud clashing, clunking noise and saw that a tree had snatched a bicycle from the top of a car as it drove under low hanging branches. Funny for an observer but embarrassing and worrisome for the owner. With the help of bystanders, he retrieved it. I think it was OK.

Tree-snatching bicycle - Cape May Point SP - NJ

There is also a Cape May NWR, widely separated pieces of land all over the peninsula. One part is the Two Mile Beach on the Atlantic side, just north of Cape May. I first drove too far and ended in Wildwood, a misnomer if ever there was one, as the town was buzzing with motorcycles and people and high rises and cars and noise - a typical tourist venue. But I found the refuge, most of which is closed to the public to protect the birds, but one could walk a small trail through the dense scrub to the beaches. The sun was brilliant; it was warm; there were ocean breezes and only a few other people were here on this protected land between Coast Guard property to the south and zuzu-land to the north.

Cpae May NWR - NJ

A small group doing "research on body mechanics" was set up under a sun umbrella at the trailhead with 20 Tupperware containers of little crabs and high tech recording devices. The crabs would scuttle about in front of a mirror and something somehow was being recorded.

A woman was digiscoping on another short trail by a salt marsh. We got to talking, and I mentioned wanting to see a Prairie Warbler. She said she had photographed one that morning at the State Park, hanging out in the Sweet Autumn Clematis on the Blue trail, so I went back and hung around there an hour but dipped.

I walked on Higbee Beach, seeing Black Scoters out on the water, stopped by the Cape May Meadows site and went to the Cape May Observatory Nature Store where I bought an Arizona birding book, a book on searching for the Ivory-bill Woodpecker in Florida and a lens-cleaning pen.

Sanderlings - Higbee Beach - NJ

DHC: This all was a bit like Magee with a constant low buzz about when and where and what...like a couple of recent rarities were a Buff-breasted Sandpiper, Western Kingbird and a White-winged Dove (memories of Texas for me, just hearing that bird mentioned). Smart phones occasionally rang, keeping the local birders informed.

I finally went back to the Walmart in Rio Grande as I had checked out exactly where to park so I wouldn't be all lit up, so to speak. Since there was a Starbucks in the adjacent parking lot, I settled in for a couple of hours, eating a delicious brown rice / veggie salad for dinner and working on this blog, always trying to get my impressions down before I forget details.

Blue Trail - Cape May Point State Park - NJ