Cape May Cruise.

10-25-19 SHORT HILLS: We’re back, and I have edited the pix. The camera and I were working like a well-oiled machine on our second day. We had a morning boat trip on the Osprey around the bay and salt marshes. Captain Bob provided binocs, guide books and commentary and knew just where to go for the birds. We saw herons, egrets, brants, an osprey, hawks, cormorants, shore birds, waders, a loon, kingfishers, gulls, terns, vultures. The boat dock was a few minutes from the Mission Inn where we had had a great breakfast.

After the cruise we hit the land sites again before heading north on the GSP. It was a great two days of birding. I don’t think I saw anybody new, but it was nice to see a bunch of old friends. If we go back in the spring, we may catch the birds in breeding plumage, now they are all in non-breeding mode.

There are still lots of flowers in bloom and several monarch butterflies flitting around, as well as sulfurs and a buckeye.


Double crested cormorant, one of three cormorant species that we saw.

Great blue heron showing pretty pink thighs. It's not often that we see herons facing us, usually we get the profile view.

American oyster catchers on a sand bar at low tide.

Tricolor heron, in profile, hanging out with the egrets.

Greater yellow legs. Now how did it get that name?

Black bellied plovers in non-breeding outfits.

Belted kingfisher. This guy was the only one that posed long enough for a picture.

Surf scoters.

Back at the ponds on land, a Canada goose.

Savannah sparrow, I think, they're hard to tell from song sparrows.

Yellow-rumped warbler.