Well I finally made it to a birding weekend! I attended the Cape May fall birding festival, which I have been hearing about for ages but never made it to while I lived super close. I drove up to Jersey and stayed near the Great Swamp for a night, thinking I would get some good nature time in at the Great Swamp. Sadly it was super windy and super quiet, I didn't really see anything there until I was leaving, and saw a couple of little cuties from the road. But the hotel was quite nice and I got good rest, so that was good!
Then I went into the city and spent time with Erin and Vhary and Joy, including a fancy Italian dinner. Stayed with them and met up with Maria during the day for the Edges of Ailey exhibit at the museum, and then headed to Kathleen's new apartment (amazing!!!) and went for fancy tapas. It was a wonderful whirlwind of a few days with friend in the city, then off to Cape May!
Oh, also, I forgot my binoculars. For a birding weekend. Yup, left them right by my chair at home. So I decided to go ahead and get some Monarchs for the weekend, found an REI sort of on the way to Cape May, and picked them up there. Oh well, they are better and the car bins, and now I have nice back-ups!
Anyway, on to the festival. I didn't go to any of the optional evening stuff. I was too tired, and it sounded exhausting being social in a sea of strangers. Friday morning I went on a bus trip and we went to Higbee by a platform, where we saw lots of migrants fly over. A few cool things close up, including a bobwhite hanging out right by us, mostly flyovers. This was where I really understood the difference between this type of birding and the type of birding I've been used to, where you just see what is nearby in the trees etc. Here they are really paying attention mostly to the migrants flying by, which is a very different approach for me.
Next to the hawkwatch, which was by an inlet from the coast, so it had just tons of water birds. Swans, geese, different types of ducks, herons. Really beautiful. And several raptors flew over, notably the harriers flying over the tall grasses next to the water. So beautiful! This was a really nice spot. I was nervous that a hawk-watch platform would have too many steps for me, but that wasn't the case at all!
Next up to the sea watch at Avalon. It was so so so windy! Here we were mostly seeing flocks of scoters or cormorants fly by, migrating. They were far away but you could tell what they were by their shape, flying patterns, etc. It was cool! A few sandpipers close by, and I did see a dolphin! That was a highlight. Oh and the bald eagle catching the fish! That was awesome!
That afternoon I drove to a park for a session on learning birdsong, and on the way there the car alerted me to low tire pressure! Oh nooooooooo! Luckily I was talking to some guy and it turned out he was a mechanic for another brand of car, he offered to take a look, and checked all the tires and they were all fine. So at least it's not an emergency. Thank you stranger! The talk about bird song was really helpful, just in building terminology about how to think about and talk about bird calls and songs.
That was it for the day. I was done, super tired and ready for some down time.
The next day I had to drive myself, which I didn't love, but it did get me out exploring for longer, so there's a tradeoff there. I accidentally recreated the same first two stops as the bus trip, which is hilarious! But we had a very different experience at the first one, we walked on some paths instead of staying by a platform, and it was much more the type of birding I'm used to, The hawkwatch one wasn't as good, there was a super famous older leader and he wanted to spend 20-30 minutes promoting his books, which I really didn't need at all. The other leader was great, and I had an okay time, but that one famous guy, I didn't like him at all. The highlight that time I think was all the merlin, there were quite a few, I'm starting to be able to pick them out as they fly through. One grabbed a swallow! I can't say I saw it, exactly, I saw the merlin flying around by the swallows, and then I saw that it had one. That middle bit of catching it I didn't notice at all!
Lunch (breakfast for lunch) at a diner near the beach, a walk on the beach, and then time for the next one! Another beach birding trip, at a different beach, which was just littered with horseshoe crab shells. Lots of ghost crabs. It was not a good smelling beach. But we did see lots of little cutie sandpipers of various sorts, and quite a few osprey! We even saw two catch fish right there and fly off with them, which was really cool.
Again, back to the room exhausted.
Sunday morning was another trip with transportation provided, just get on the trolley and go. We went somewhere cool and saw a zillion yellow-rumps, a few other things, mostly it was just a nice time. We did see a sharpie zoom through and pick up a white-throated sparrow! Again, I can't say I saw the snatch, just saw it zooming quite low and then saw it had the bird. These hunters are so fast!
After that, I got all my stuff into the car and headed home. I didn't have energy for a bonus stop at the hawkwatch or Avalon, just wanted to get on the road. I learned some things, and I'm so glad I went!
