And in My Backyard

Great Blue Heron, Gulls and Mute Swan

Over the past 2 weeks I have been out and about Cape May County taking pictures with my new camera. Here's some of birds I"ve seen recently.

Sandhill Cranes

Earlier this week I was out walking in one of my favorite spots - Cape May Point. On the way to the Point I spotted 2 Sandhill Cranes in a harvested corn field and had to take a few pictures. There are some great spots to photograph birds that are out and about including Lake Lily, Cape May Point Lighthouse Park and all along the beaches.

Ivory Gull - the Start of a Birder

The bird that got me started in birding was the juvenile Ivory Gull that came to Cape May back in late November, 2009. The gull hung around for about 10 days. This gull normally winters up by the edge of the Arctic on ice cap. This was the first one seen in Cape May.

The Ivory Gull was first found on November 27th. It was reported on the Net. My brother-in-law, Bert is a birder and he gets tweets about rare and unusual birds including the Ivory Gull. Hundred's of birders showed up to see the Ivory Gull. It spent much of it's time here near the Bre-Zee-Lee Yacht Basin dining on fish parts. About a week later after the excitement had died down I went over to the Bree-Zee-Lee Yacht Basin to see if I could find the Ivory Gull and there he was right in front of me. Fantastic, wonderful, beautiful - my first bird in my new interest!

About myself

I decided that I'd like to try a blog posting about my activities in and around my home along with my travels. Of course I'd like those travels to be many but until I retire the travel fun will most likely be limited. About myself, I am a quilter and dyer. I love photography and had an Canon A1 that I loved. Now I have a Canon Rebel XSi that I am learning to use as I love nature photography. I have just gotten interested in birding so hope to get lots of great bird pictures. I would love to learn digiscoping and plan to work on that goal in the future.