Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Cape May Update

Since arriving in Cape May, I have been visiting Cape May Point State Park quite frequently during my off-hours. Yesterday morning I found that a strong wave of migrants had arrived in the park. I saw large numbers of American redstarts, as well as at least one black-and-white warbler and a black-throated blue warbler. (Apparently there were much better results at Higbee's Beach.) There were also a lot of eastern kingbirds around the hawkwatch platform. I could not identify all of the peeps in the park's ponds, but I did find some least sandpipers, plus short-billed dowitchers, lesser and greater yellowlegs, and a solitary sandpiper.

Elsewhere around the Cape, I have been seeing hundreds of tree swallows, darting around and perching on the telephone wires. There are handfuls of ruddy turnstones and sanderling on the beaches. Yesterday evening I saw a gull-billed tern fly past Sunset Beach.