Category: festivals

The most special part of our trip was meeting up with our friend Mark Garland. Mark is a Naturalist who leads lots of field trips and tours. He took us to a couple great birding spots. At the beach, we saw Horseshoe Crabs and thousands of shorebirds including Gulls, Terns, Sandpipers, Plovers, Killdeer, Ruddy Turnstones and then some! Every year in the spring, the Horseshoe Crabs come to shore to lay their eggs. For two weeks, thousands of shorebirds come to eat the eggs to refuel before heading north.

Mark is showing us how the male Horseshoe Crab latches on to the female with their boxer claws.

Isn’t he attractive?

Mark is looking through some seaweed to show us a Horseshoe Crab egg.

He is showing us the egg. It is so tiny we could hardly see it. 

We saw a Tri-colored Heron. Another life bird!

 

Ferd and I went to Cape May, New Jersey for the Cape Maygration Shorebird and Horseshoe Crab Festival. We didn’t realize until the last minute that we needed to take a Ferry over to Cape May. We were very lucky to catch the last Ferry over! Our first day, we birded the trails, fields and forest edges of Higbee Beach and Cape May point State Park. Here is our group starting out.

Ferd observing from the observation deck.

Observing our group

And me

We saw so many, many shorebirds and other wildlife and many new life birds for me! Here are only a few of the things we saw.

Here is an Oystercatcher on her nest.Ruddy Ducks

Gadwalls

Blue-gray GnatchcatcherTurtle

Black Razor Snake

Blackburnian Warbler

Red-headed Woodpecker

Thousands of Gulls and Terns.

We saw many Summer Tanagers

Great Crested FlycatcherEverywhere I turned, I saw birds!

Rat SnakeThe Cape May Lighthouse

Mute SwanPainted Turtle

 

What a great trip! I saw 70 species and it’s only the first day!