Cape May County ~ The Meadows

I decided that this morning I would walk the Meadows looking for birds and butterflies.  I was hoping for good numbers of both and was disappointed not to find as many as I would have liked.

A more colorful Stinging Rose caterpillar

Prairie Warbler

There were probably about 10 Monarch flying around the Meadows.

Painted Lady

Prairie Warbler

Prairie Warbler

 

There was Common Yellowthroat's all around CM Point.

Birding with Mike and Lois

In December I was contacted through birding pals by a couple coming to the Cape May area in May. Michael and Lois have left their home in the Portland, Oregon area and have been birding around the US with many stops along the Gulf coast before heading of the Eastern Seaboard.  They arrived Tuesday on the Cape May-Lewes ferry.  Yesterday they went on several of the birding walks with the Cape May Bird Observatory.  This morning I met up with Mike and Lois and we went on the Belleplain State Forest walk with the CMBO. The weather wasn't the best so the birds weren't as active as I would have liked.  The highlight were point blank looks at Prairie Warblers chasing each other around.





After the walk at Belleplain finished I took them down to Reed's Beach hoping to see some Horseshoe Crab and their eggs with some shorebirds feeding on the eggs.  As we drove down the road the first birds we saw were Surf Scoters and Black Scoters close to the shoreline. At the road's end there were the dozens of Double-crested Cormorants hanging out on the pilings.  Across the inlet water is an island where a large group of just arrived Red Knots were resting.  A walk out onto the jetty afforded us a great look at breeding plumage Ruddy Turnstones, Red Knots, Least Sandpipers, Sanderlings and Laughing Gulls