Cape May State Park and Nature Conservancy

Two of my favorite places for nature meditation are the state park in Cape May Point, and the nearby Nature Conservancy. Both always yield something of interest, and both provide an environment for contemplation and discovery.

A few highlights ...

Least Tern

Laughing Gull

Spotted Sandpiper

The Swamp Rose Mallow throughout the marshes was stunning ...

Swamp Rose Mallow

Swamp Rose Mallow

Mute Swans are exotics, and pose problems for native species, but there is no denying that they are beautiful birds, and magnificent in flight ...

Mute Swans

Equally magnificent in flight is the Osprey ...

Osprey

Osprey

This young Great Blue Heron caught a hearty breakfast, but could not figure out how to manipulate his catch so that it could be swallow head first. He flew a short distance to a dry patch of ground, dropped this fish, stabbed at it once or twice, then picked it up with head positioned correctly. In third picture, note the "throat bulge" of the swallowed fish ...

Great Blue Heron

Great Blue Heron

Great Blue Heron

Watching the Snowy Egret foraging in shallow water was a thing of delicate beauty (unless you happened to be a small fish) ...

Snowy Egret

Snowy Egret

Good Birding!!

Egrets Display Their Finery

Egrets suffered terribly from the feather trade. When you see them in their nuptial splendor, and remember the propensity of humans for greed (the feather trade) and vanity (women's hats), we are fortunate to have them at all.

The Great Egret is no slouch ...

Great Egret displaying

Great Egret displaying

...  but the Snowy Egret is breathtaking, and that is an understatement ! !

Snowy Egret displaying

Snowy Egret displaying

Snowy Egret displaying

Wow ! !

More Waders

As I continue to review the wetland waders photographed in Florida, I have to give a place of prominence to the Cattle Egret, which were just coming into their nuptial splendor.

Cattle Egret

Cattle Egrets are native to Africa where they forage alongside camels, ostriches, rhinos, and tortoises - as well as farmers’ tractors. The one occasion in Vermont when I saw the Cattle Egret, it was following a tractor as it plowed a field in Spring.




Cattle Egret
These birds somehow found their way to South America; the first record was in 1877, which may make them officially an exotic (non-native). They arrived in the United States in 1941 and were nesting by 1953. Cattle Egrets spread throughout North America and are common to abundant in some areas.

Cattle Egret

When the White Ibis appears in Cape May, it usually creates a stir, with birders carefully reporting its presence and location and pursuing it with considerable intent. This may have been the most common wader I saw in Florida; these birds were wading in wetlands, grazing on lawns, usually in flocks.

White Ibis

White Ibis

Snowy Egrets have made a wonderful recovery from the devastations of the feather trade a hundred years ago, and are common north and south. There will be additional photos of the nuptial splendor of these dainty birds, but this will do for now.

Snowy Egret

True birds of the southern swamps are the solitary and secretive Limpkin (falling taxonomically in the vicinity of the rails and cranes) and the Great White Heron. A bird of the Everglades and Keys, the Great White Heron is currently considered a sub-species of the Great Blue Heron.

Limpkin

Great White Heron

Good Birding!!

Litlle Blue, Green, Snowy

The past week in Pennsylvania and south New Jersey was delightful. Just a few highlights of the waders we encountered.

At Cape May State Park, and elsewhere, young immature Little Blue Herons were common sights ...

Little Blue Heron (immature)

Little Blue Heron (immature)

In the salt marsh behind the Wetlands Institute, this immature Green Heron posed in the open in a manner not often seen ...

Green Heron (immature)

Nearby, a Snowy Egret was resting a weary leg ...

Snowy Egret

The young robin is obviously not a wader, but it has gotten the idea about how it needs to make it own way in the world ...

American Robin (immature)

Good Birding!!

Snowy Egret - Plumes in the Breeze

A gentle breeze stirred the nuptial plumage of the Snowy Egrets; I nearly swooned.

A hundred years ago, those delicate plumes nearly led to the extinction of this small white egret as market hunters fed the demand of the millinery trade. (See post of column on October 29, 2011, "When Feathers were More Valuable Than Gold.")

The Snowy Egret has made a tremendous recovery. At Forsyth NWR, they were in all their splendid finery. A sampling ...

Good Birding!!

Waders - Brigantine

We've been in the Philadelphia area; when the weather cleared this week we made a trip to Brigantine unit, Forsythe NWR. Though rather hazy through the morning, there was good birding with the breeding summer residents.

In spring and summer, I always hear Clapper Rails along the Jersey shore but I do not always get a sighting. The rails "tek-ked" in many places in the salt marshes. The ebbing tide and patience finally yielded this individual as it crossed a muddy opening.

Clapper Rail

Long minutes were spent watching this Black-crowned Night Heron as it foraged for what appeared to be some kind of mud worm (sorry - still learning the birds, much less what they are finding to eat) ...

Black-crowned Night Heron

Black-crowned Night Heron

Additional waders - common, but I never tire of watching them or photographing them.  The Great Egret shows the breeding plumage which the "feather trade" craved and which nearly drove it to extinction. Thankfully it has rebounded wonderfully.

Great Egret

Snowy Egret

Great Blue Heron

Glossy Ibis

Good Birding!

Waders 3

Third in the wading bird series from south Florida, late February.

Least Bittern (female) ...

Least Bittern

Cattle Egret ...

Cattle Egret

Limpkin ...

Limpkin

Snowy Egret ...

Snowy Egret

Good birding!

Wordless Egrets - Post #500