There's one good reason to go to Cape May, New Jersey, in spring - most of the tourists are birds
Travel & Leisure
April 1997
(This version is slightly different than the one that appeared in T&L.)
After a long New York City winter when the bird watching in Central Park is scant, and the chickadee no longer flutters in my empty flower box, I pack my car and head south. I take the back roads through the New Jersey pine barrens until I've reached the Cape May peninsula, one of the best birdwatching locations in North America.
Strange as it may seem, New Jersey is a mecca for birds. Cape May -- a town on the state's southernmost tip with many restored Victorian houses -- and the surrounding marshlands are situated on one of the world's great migratory flyways. More than 350 species pass through on a regular basis, a phenomenon that has drawn John James Audubon, Roger Tory Peterson, and thousands of other naturalists since the 1800s. In fact, there are so many species that in order to win the World Series of Birding, held here each May, a team must identify as many as 220 in 24 hours.
As a relatively inexperienced "backyard birder," I look for nothing more than a few good sightings and a chance to stretch my legs. In fact, the flock that I find most intriguing is birders themselves. They're nitpicky, they where silly hats, and they obsess about their binoculars. Perhaps that's why the British excel at the sport. But you don't need an ornithologist to enjoy the splendors of a spring migration in full bloom, and there are few better places to do so than the seaside town of Cape May in April when most of the tourists are birds.
After I climb aboard the Skimmer, a 40-foot pontoon boat for a three-hour bird-watching cruise, I get the usual greeting from my 11 fellow birders: "Where are you from?" and "What birds have you seen there?"
We glide out of Cape May Harbor, past a U.S. Coast Guard station with its huge police vessels and colorful buoy yard. The town's Victorian houses fade into a blur in the distance. The afternoon is sunny, and patches of grass are beginning to appear among the tall golden reeds that surround the harbor -- a sign that spring has come and with it the migration of 1.5 million shorebirds. Dozens of species cross paths each week as winter residents depart and spring nesters arrive.
"Those red-breasted mergansers weren't here last week," informs Bob Carlough, captain of both the Skimmer and a local whale-watching cruise.
"You mean you didn't see them last week," quips Tom Parsons, a naturalist for the Cape May Bird Observatory (C.M.B.O.). Parson's floppy hat is strapped under his silver beard; his binoculars are always within his grasp.
We sail to a narrow salt marsh where hundreds of shorebirds set up camp and feed on fish, clams, and mussels. Flocks of Brant geese soak in the sun. Oystercatchers, whose arrange beaks resemble carrots, crouch on their nests, warming their eggs. Two short-billed dowitchers are still dressed for winter. As Captain Carlough steadies the boat, we strain our eyes to watch a marbled godwit -- not normally seen in the area at this time -- poke its long, slender bill into the sand, foraging for food. The vagrant will be the envy of everyone who calls the 24-hour C.M.B.O. Birding Hotline, which reports the highlights of the week.
Inland, a tidal pool attracts the first flock of endangered black skimmers. We rush to the bow and stoop low, our elbows out like wings, adjusting the focus knobs of our binoculars. Then we wait, hoping to witness the bird's unusual feeding technique. Skimmers are the only birds whose lower mandible is longer than the upper, enabling them to "skim" the surface of a pond while in flight. By June, more than a 1,000 skimmers will call this inlet home. Unfortunately, we don't get to see them skim.
If you're a neophyte birder, like myself, it's confusing when experienced birders describe birds in terms of yet other birds. "That loon's acting like a grebe!" someone says, a fact that's lost on me. For the rest of the cruise we follow a loon, a black-and-white swimming bird that visits these parts from Arctic shores. The loon is elusive, continuously diving and surfacing in a frenzied game of hide-and-seek. His taunts keep our hands glued to our glasses.
"Loon at twelve o'clock, a hundred yards out!" says David Githens, the Skimmer's naturalist. Twelve sets of binoculars scan left, but the loon's gone underwater, revealing another dark profile.
"Loon's up! there it is -- to the left of that willet, behind the brants!" But we lose it again. I use the loon downtime to identify what I think is a plover, hopping on one leg while warming the other at its breast. I fumble through my bird book to several pages of plovers pictured in all stages of molting; I need to make sure I'm correct before I make any rash announcements. I feel dizzy and confused and not sure which illustration is my bird. Everywhere I look are rump patches and wing stripes and breast bands. Finally, I spot the black belly. I smile triumphantly, about to claim my first black-bellied plover, when a voice steals my thunder by calling out, "There's the loon!"
Birding in the fog presents some challenges to the fledgling birder. I learn this on a walk I take the next morning with CMBO director Pete Dunne, who compensates for bad visibility with a display of chirps, honks, and whistles so colorful I thought he'd attract a mate himself. This turns out to be good practice for the evening's so-called sunset bird walk -- about to take place in a downpour.
It's raining at 5:30 P.M. in the Stone Harbor parking lot, but Mike Fritz, an associate naturalist for the CMBO, is ecstatic. "Should be great today!" he says. "The best day we've had all year. We adapt to the weather on these walks." Easy for Mike to say; he can birdwatch with his ears. The open hatchback of Mike's Jeep doubles as a duck blind, and we huddle under it, drying our binoculars, clutching our hoods and hats. Already the wind has brought in eight migrant gannets, seabirds with six-foot wingspans, long necks and big tapered bills. The gannets soar along the ocean and dive in, fishing for mackerel. Since these pelagic birds are seldom seen from shore, we consider ourselves lucky.
We leave the resort town of Stone Harbor and drive to Nummy Island, a barren salt marsh at Hereford Inlet. A walk along the pond offers a spectacular sight -- flocks of black-crown and yellow-crown night herons roosting in tall cedars. To my naked eye the herons look like hunched old men (actually their posture resembles birders), but seen through my binoculars long breeding plumes appear -- the telltale sign that these old birds are looking for mates. Mike focuses his spotting scope on a sinuous piece of driftwood, and there, in full view, is a heron's gold crown, far more vibrant that the illustration in my field guide.
We are cold, wet, but happy. By June this causeway will be too crowded with summer vacationers for birding. But today the stretch is barren, and the flooded tidal pools cause every living thing to surface and squawk. We spot dunlins, little blue herons, and short-billed dowitchers working their beaks into the mud with the motion of sewing machines. All around us is the racket of breeding calls, but an even louder din, a hysterical ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, blares from a distant island -- the largest laughing gull colony in the world.
As the rain lets up the tide recedes, leaving fish trapped in the tidal pools. A snowy egret squabbles with a lame tricolored heron for the spoils. A pair of clapper rails dance and click and court to the cry of a self-promoting willet: "We-willet, we-willet, we-willet."
We end our expedition back in town, at a side street that overlooks the salt marsh to the west. The sky has darkened, the channel markers flash, and yellow lights glow from the outlying village. According to Mike, three factors made our trip a success: high tide, dusk, and bad weather. Imagine what I'll see if I come back when the weather's even worse.
© 1997 Melissa Milgrom
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