Four Boats

One more post from Cape May, this one a story about four boats.

The first was The Osprey, our salt marsh tour transport. Smile, Susan - you're birding in Cape May with The Flock!

Susan (center), Jay (blue jacket),
Laura (standing), Lynne (right rear),
and assorted other birder-boaters

At one point, we snagged the marker buoy for a crab trap, and we were temporarily stalled when the rope became entangled around the boat's prop.


The captain had to cut it to remove it. I'm taking bets on who won when the captain with the incapacitated boat met the crabber with the damaged gear.


Passing a boat dock with upscale housing in the background

Click to enlarge and see the young cormorant loafing on the dock.

Others have shown you photos of the birds we saw on this trip, but no one has told the tale of the scuttled scallop boat. According to the young assistant on our trip, the former owner of this vessel went broke, and his boat was impounded. If I remember correctly, it was to be held pending sale to pay back taxes. Before it could be sold, a storm caused it to break loose and float away. It ended up here, in the salt marsh. It has been scavenged of anything useful or profitable, and the rest remains marooned, acting as a perch for local birds and a photo op for bloggers.

boat-tailed grackles and assorted gulls

The third boat of the day was the ferry I took from Cape May, New Jersey to Lewes, Delaware to meet my friend, Holly. I have ridden several ferries in my life, ranging from the Jet Express on Lake Erie from Port Clinton to Put-in-Bay, Kelley's Island to the tiny two car ferry across the Ohio River from Higginsport, OH to Augusta, KY (A ferry has been in operation at this site since 1798!), but nothing prepared me for this experience.

The ferry terminal looked like an airport, and security was almost as tight. Photo ID was required, and signs were everywhere warning you not to leave your bags or carry things for strangers. They stopped short of X-ray screenings and removing one's shoes, but there was a police officer assigned to open and close the gates that allowed cars on and off the ferry.



My first look at the Twin Capes. Wow, what a boat - looks like a cruise ship.

Five stories, complete with bar, gift shop, arcade, children's play area, and an elevator, for goodness' sake! This is a ferry?


The forward lounge, where I sat watching the view, until the rocking motion dissuaded me from any more sightseeing and I looked for a more stable place where I could curl up and pray that I wouldn't be seasick.

Calling my sister: "Lisa, talk to me.
I'm on the ferry and I think I'm going to throw up."
L: "No, you won't."
Me: "Yeah, I think I'm gonna."
L: (firmly) "NO, you WON'T. Just don't think about it.
You will NOT be sick."

(Thanks, sis. You helped.)

The curved staircase leading up to a mezzanine. The seating area there overlooked the DeBraak Room, which appeared to be yet another dining area. Note to self: Do not attempt to walk up (and especially down) a curving staircase on a moving boat, especially while trying not to be seasick.





While strolling around the upper deck to get some fresh air, I met this fellow passenger, heading home after enjoying his day trip to Cape May.


Vacationing dog owners who miss their pups while traveling will understand why I was drawn to him. He seemed to be having a better time than I. Perhaps four legs are better than two?

Finally, the fourth boat of the day, the ferry ride back to Cape May. After a big dinner with Holly, complete with dessert, I was worried about the return trip. Could I hold it together for the 75 minute crossing?

It was dark when I boarded, so it wasn't until I was actually on deck that I realized this was a quite different boat from the one I was on earlier.

No luxury accommodations here. Three decks - an open-air deck above, one for cars below, and one serving this multipurpose function with a snack counter and booths with vinyl seats.

Now, this is what I expected a ferry would look like!

Celebrity Sightings at Cape May

You can't turn around at Cape May without running into an idol (or three.) I actually saw Pete Dunne in the Cape May Bird Observatory book store and didn't have my camera. I was afraid he would freak out if I asked to wait while I ran out to the car for it, so no pics of the Great Man himself. I did get some other Life Birders on film. (er, I mean "digital memory card.")

Jeff Gordon. A nicer guy you have never met, and a top-drawer birder. I had met him once before, at the New River festival in West Virginia in 2006, and I was pleasantly surprised to see he recognized me, too. Please note the sandals, despite the wind chill on the HawkWatch Tower. At least he had on long pants, although they are the kind that could convert to shorts with a moment's notice. Hi, Jeff! See you next spring.

Jay Davis, the technical guy behind birdJam, and quite the birder, I understand. Of course, I never actually saw Jay on a bird walk, only while eating and drinking, so I will have to take his word for it. Here he is giving directions to Delia, who was still lost. You know you are in trouble when you call your friends for directions and they hand you to the girl from Ohio, who has only navigated the route around Philly once in her life.

A major geek moment was meeting and birding with Michael O'Brien, author, artist, birder, and all-around naturalist. I'm sure he thought I was a stalker. He led the first bird walk I took at Cape May Point State Park at 7:30am Friday, then I attended his sparrow workshop Friday afternoon and the related field trip on Saturday morning. By coincidence, he was also a leader during my Sunday trip to Higbee Beach. In just two hours, he taught me much about bird calls, the other sounds birds make besides songs. It was because of his tutelage that I got my Life Winter Wren after the group broke up, while sitting by the side of the road, eating my lunch and waiting for a ride. Thanks, Michael. You will never know how sweet it was, finding that wren all by myself. (After you taught me what to listen for, that is.)

No bird festival is complete without a BirdChick sighting. Sharon is just as fun, and funny, in person as she is on her blog. She can have her serious moments, too, like when she was relating the story of a Cooper's Hawk killing an endangered Red Knot, right in front of Kevin Karlson's shorebirding group. How rude! Couldn't the hawk have taken a killdeer?

Lest you think that Cape May is all about birds, let me share with you my favorite celebrity photo.


Yes, it's true! Joe the Plumber is alive and well and working in Cape May, New Jersey. I guess his fame in Ohio was too much to bear.

Wordless Wednesday: Three Birder-Blogger-Buddies

photo by Jeff Gordon

Intermediate Birding: "It's later now."

One of the great things about Cape May are the indoor workshops. When your cheeks are wind-burned from standing on the Hawk Watch tower, when too much sun and surf has chapped your lips, when your legs are tired of hiking through the pumpkin patch at the Beanery, or when the rain drives you indoors, you can sit in a warm, dry spot and learn things to help you become a better birder. I attended three such workshops: an excellent review on raptors by one of the young interns from the Cape May Bird Observatory, a super study of sparrows by Michael O'Brien (geek-alert!), and a talk on intermediate birding by Vince Elia, which was chock-full of valuable information.

Vince started out by saying he added this topic because every other birding event he attended had lots of beginning birder sessions and several advanced birder programs, but nothing specifically geared towards those of us in-betweeners. Personally, I loved this concept. I feel I am no longer a beginning birder, but I have a long, LONG way to go before I call myself "advanced." This talk seemed to be aimed right at me.

I really can't remember everything Vince said, to be honest, despite taking notes. The room was hot and I was tired, and I kinda drifted off a bit towards the end of his 2 hour lecture. There were three things I remember him saying that we should focus on to advance our birding skills: Better optics (Buy the best you can afford), weather and how it affects bird movements, and the subject of this post, bird topography.

His opening remarks grabbed me and made me sit up. He asked if anyone in the room had a field guide. Everyone pulled out their favorite guide(s) from their back pack, birding bag, or coat pocket and waved them in the air. He selected one at random and opened it up. "Remember that diagram in the front of your field guide that you skipped over, saying 'I'll get to it later'? Well, guess what - It's later now."

I cackled silently. If only he knew. He had just spoken directly to me.

When I came home, I opened the front of my 4th edition (1980) Peterson's field guide. There it was. A "bird map."

click to enlarge any photo

My 2003 Sibley guide had it, too.


I'll be darned! Even the new book I bought at the CMBO bookstore, Sparrows of the United States and Canada, by David Beadle and James Rising, had a similar drawing.

(Why do these birds all face the same way?)

And with sparrows, you talk a lot about the various stripes on their heads, so you have that much more to look for and learn.

Sibley's head shots include an actual bird,
which I find very helpful

Why spend so much time learning weird words like nape, vent, median coverts, and supercilium? Is it necessary to enjoy birds? Absolutely not. I have enjoyed birds and birdwatching for years without knowing what an auricular patch was. If this post makes your eyes cross and your brain go numb, don't worry. You don't have to deal with this stuff if you don't want to. But, if you want to describe a bird to an expert, it's nice not to fumble around saying "It was little and mostly yellow," or if an advanced birder is helping you sort out a grasshopper sparrow from a Henslow's sparrow, it helps if you know where to look when they mention the median crown stripe.

You don't have to memorize all these strange words in one day. Pick a part of the bird and study just that area, like the head or the tail, then use those words to describe birds you already know. Take Song Sparrow, for instance, my most common sparrow, which I recognize by the thick brown streaks on its breast and sides, and a strong central breast spot. If I look at the head, I see an eyeline behind the eye only (post-ocular stripe) and a wide, dark malar stripe. At the other end, I observe a long rounded tail. When I compare it to Savannah Sparrow, a bird I often confuse with Song Sparrow because it too has brown streaks and may show a central breast spot, I learn that the Savannah has yellowish lores (the spot between the eye and bill) and a short, notched tail. One feature on the head and one on the tail can help me sort out these two birds in the field.

So, open those field guides, and start looking at the diagrams in the front of the book. Remember, "It's later now."

Cape May - Day One

A little bit out of order, here are some random shots of our trip to Cape May:

Susan's new(er) Subaru, "Baroo" (say it with a slight head tilt to the side) filled to the brim with all my crap.

Yes, I packed more stuff than anyone else. Actually, I packed more than everyone else combined. Yes, I was the butt of everyone's jokes all weekend long. BUT, whenever anybody needed anything, odds were, I had it. Except an Ohio map.

My first view of the Philadelphia skyline, from I-76. Pretty neat.

Especially this tres cool building.

Had no idea what it was, so I looked it up when I got home: the Circa Centre. Very interesting.

The Walt Whitman toll bridge. By the way, there is no toll on the east-bound side, but they charge you $4.00 to get out of Jersey when you are driving west. Hmmm. I thought it was awesome. Susan looked like she was going to puke.
Who knew our bold, brassy Susan had bridge issues?

Meeting Lynne, just up from a nap. "Hello, Lynne! We're here!"
We had 3 bedrooms to choose from. Lynne arrived first, and staked out her claim. When asked, Susan didn't indicate a preference, so ...

Of course I took the big room.

After all, I had the most stuff!And this isn't all of it!

"Heeee-re's Laura!" Now, it's a party !

Gifts were distributed all around. Laura brought goodie bags filled with New Jersey souvenirs, like Cape May "diamonds."
Susan shared her lovely beaded jewelery. Lynne gave us delicate carved wooden feather pins.
My contribution consisted of pottery mugs in varied colors, with birds stenciled on the sides.
I think everyone was pleased with their loot.

Dinner was "a slice" at Louie's Pizza.

Not a "guido" in sight.

A night-time stroll on the beach yielded me my first official Cape May bird, sanderlings playing in the surf. We could tell they were sanderlings by the way they ran back and forth with each wave. Also, I had a flashlight! It wasn't until I got home that I realized they were also my first Life Birds of the trip. Had I known that then, I would have taken off my shoes and done the Life Bird Wiggle barefooted in the sand.

Dining out in Cape May

Finding food in a new place can be a challenge, but advice from locals or people who have been there before always help.

Susan recommended this pizza place for a quick bite on our first night in Cape May. Here I got "a slice" and a Snapple lemonade.
Pizza by the slice has a very New York sort of feel to me. And an East Coast "slice" is much more generous than one in Ohio.

Susan and Laura had also eaten here before:
I wonder if the shorts-wearing waiter had anything to do with their rave reviews. The cheese ravioli and huge meatballs were to die for. I was surprised at the number of Italian restaurants in Cape May. I didn't see any Mexican or Chinese places, but lots of Italian ones. Maybe it has something to do with the Guidos?

Susan, are you dreaming about the waiter?
Or plotting a way to get corporate sponsorship for your blog?

Here is a Cape May institution, right on the beach:
Birders are practically required to have breakfast at Uncle Bill's at least once during the Autumn Weekend. Sadly, once was all I could afford; pancakes, sausage, OJ and milk plus tip ran me nearly $20.

I didn't get a photo of the C-View Inn, sports bar cum restaurant, where we ate, drank, and made merry on Saturday night. Nine televisions and the rumor that Pete Dunne eats there were good enough for me. The crab cakes were good, though small. They don't do a frozen margarita, only on the rocks, so I settled for Corona with a wedge of lime. Good thing, too, as I don't think the group was ready for KatDoc on tequila.

This little diner was not in Cape May, not even in New Jersey, but across the bay in Lewes, Del. It was the site of my oh-too-brief dinner with Holly-the-person, my e-friend of 8 years who I finally got to meet in real life.


The food was good but the company better. I had flounder, stuffed with crab meat (yum!), loaded mashed potatoes and a cake called "Tres Leches," which was made of three kinds of milk.

Holly-the-person
"For I have friends I've never met."
Well-met, Holly!

Skywatch Goes to Cape May

The lighthouse at Cape May State Point Park is a landmark. The Hawk Watch platform is nearby, and everyone gravitates to "The Point" at some time during the weekend. If you get lost, just drive toward the lighthouse and you''ll make it there.

click here for more Skywatch Friday images

Black Skimmers and Co.

One of my goals for the trip to Cape May was to see Black Skimmers. I had heard about them from Susan and Laura, seen photos on the Internet, and read about how their oversized lower mandible is used to skim fish from the surface of the ocean, but nothing prepared me for the sight of these beauties in person.

I had gone back to the condo on Friday afternoon, to shower and rest after a hard morning of birding. I was clean and dry and comfy, ready to relax, when Susan called me from the beach. "Laura and I are at the Second Avenue jetty and there are tons of skimmers! Get down here," she exclaimed. I thought about it for 30 seconds, then reluctantly declined. My bed was calling.

Saturday morning, Lynne and I came out of Uncle Bill's Pancake House, a Cape May institution. Breakfast here is a requirement of the Autumn Weekend. As we were taking pictures of the sign (don't ask!), I noticed an odd flock of birds wheeling and diving over the water's edge. "Look at those strange gulls," I commented. Lynne did a double-take. "Those aren't gulls," she replied. "They're ..." We looked at each other. "SKIMMERS!"

We hopped in the car and followed them along the beach. When they stopped, we stopped, parking the car quickly and grabbing our bins and cameras. We tracked them to their resting place.

Black Skimmers - what an incredible bird!

click on any photo to enlarge

The adults are black and white, with an outlandish red-orange and black bill. First year birds are sooty gray, smudged versions of their parents. The difference in bill length is less dramatic, too.


With the skimmers were a flock of Forester's Terns and a Laughing Gull.

foreground: Laughing Gull
middle left: adult Black Skimmer, followed by 2 juveniles
rear and right side: Forester's Terns

The whole flock, including some tern action.