During my spring break, the last week of March, my family and I headed out east. It takes about nine hours to drive 620 miles to Princeton, New Jersey, but if you bird in the car, time flies. Princeton’s gorgeous campus is home to plenty of backyard birds, including American Robins, American Crows, Canada Geese, Mourning Doves, Great Blue Herons, and, if you’re lucky, Belted Kingfishers. We soon left the urban area and headed 30 minutes out of the city to Sourland Mountain Preserve, a quiet and open area that’s great for hiking. The most exciting moment? Vulture copulation.
While courtship can last for hours, the actual act of mating in birds never lasts more than a few seconds, which means it’s incredibly rare for birders to witness, particularly in a species that spends most of its time soaring overhead. A rowdy affair, it was certainly the highlight of my walk in this peaceful preserve.
I kept myself busy with an “I Spy” game of sorts throughout the trip — is it a Black Vulture or a Turkey Vulture? I was overjoyed to finally see my first Black Vulture on the trip hiding in a group of circling Turkey Vultures. Additionally, I was surprised by the number of Osprey along the highway. Almost every cell tower had a pair nesting, and it definitely made the drive more interesting.
The next day, we drove two and a half hours south to the tip of New Jersey: Cape May. Before exploring the area, we stopped at the Cape May Bird Observatory to pick up local field guides and chat with the friendly staff. It was exciting to read about the New Jersey Young Birders Club and the events they have planned for the next few months. We didn’t have to go far before reaching Cape May Point State Park, a beautiful wetlands area and trails on the point. I saw many Mute Swans, Mallards, Buffleheads, Gadwalls (lifer!), American Coots (lifer!), and Northern Mockingbirds (lifer!). The weather was nice, and the park wasn’t too crowded. A camouflaged deck on one of the ponds offered a wonderful viewing spot of a flock of ducks: Mallards, Buffleheads, and Northern Pintails (lifer!). The Great Egrets and Tree Swallows were kind enough to stand still for a few frames. Further down the road, at Cape May Meadows, I saw my first Snowy Egret — a great opportunity to practice differentiating between it and the Great Egret by its black beak and smaller size. Other new species for me included the striking American Oystercatchers and several Green-winged Teals marked with the wide green eye swoop.
Again, it made me happy to see many Ospreys nesting in the area and even to catch one flying overhead carrying an extremely long branch for its nest. We also got to see dolphins! Yes, dolphins.
Before we left Cape May, we made sure to visit Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), an hour north, where there is a scenic 8-mile drive to see the hundreds of migrating waterfowl. Some of my favorites were Snow Geese (lifer!), Brant (lifer!), Northern Shovelers (lifer!), Common Mergansers, and Double-crested Cormorants.
The platforms they have set up for the nesting of Ospreys in the NWR are amazing! One caught a fish and ate it proudly on top of the platform while hungry Herring Gulls waited below for scraps.
Finally, we headed around the Delaware Bay to Assateague Island — a birding hotspot mostly known for the wild ponies that live there year-round. Even though the southern part of the island is better for birding, I was excited to find many gulls on the northern side, including the Great Black-backed Gull (lifer!) and my first Northern Gannet (lifer!). The beaches there are entirely untouched, and perfect white sand stretches for miles along the coast. We even saw a few of the famous wild ponies. Of course, my camera died as soon as we spotted a perfectly-positioned Bald Eagle, but it was (to say the least) a fitting and glorious end to a fun East Coast trip.
~ by Karinne Tennenbaum
Michigan Young Birders Network contributor
Karinne is a junior at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor. She enjoys regularly heading out on walks around her city and taking photographs of the local species. Seeking a community of other young birders at her high school, she founded the Ornithological Society of Pioneer and created the podcast “Taking Flight.”
You can find out more about the Michigan Young Birders Network at michiganaudubon.org/learn/young-birders/.