Exploring Maryland’s Western Shore

We just spent a beautiful weekend exploring Maryland’s western shore. This region includes the counties that are on the west side of Chesapeake Bay. This trip our second time staying in Calvert County. The first time was in 2019 when we explored Flag Ponds Nature Park, Calvert Cliffs State Park, and Battle Creek Cypress Swamp. We returned to two of these locations, however this time it was Birder Boy’s (BB) first trip to the area.

Birding wasn’t our only goal on this trip. BB loves vehicles and he’s been into military vehicles recently. If you’re an aviation fan I highly recommend the Patuxent River Naval Air Museum, which was a really cool place to check out. As a birder I like how many of the planes are named after raptors such as the harrier, osprey, and hawkeye. We even saw a Broad-winged Hawk in the flight line area.

After the museum we took a quick hike at Battle Creek Cypress Swamp. Highlights include Yellow-throated Warblers, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, Northern Parulas, Pine Warblers, and a Louisiana Waterthrush. We also heard many treefrogs and saw Black and Tiger Swallowtails.

Battle Creek Cypress Swamp (Image by Michelle Horowitz)

The next day we spent the morning at Flag Ponds Nature Park searching for fossils. Dave only found one small shark tooth, but BB had a blast digging at the beach. There was a lot of wildlife around: many calling tree frogs, tiger and zebra swallowtails, Ospreys, Yellow-throated Warblers, Yellow-rumped Warblers, a Swamp Sparrow, a male Belted Kingfisher, and more. Two of the most exciting finds of the day were a calling Prairie Warbler and two Killdeer. The Killdeer were calling ‘kill-deee, kill-deee’ and flying around the beach. Many times I see these cute conspicuous plovers in parking lots and other suburban/urban areas, so it’s fun to see them in a more natural habitat. They can be distinguished from other plovers by their double chest bands and red eyes.

Flag Pond Nature Park (Image by Michelle Horowitz)

Killdeer (Image by Michelle Horowitz)

There were also many Atlantic Lion’s Mane Jellyfish floating in the water. The size of this species depends on its geographically location. The lion’s mane jellyfish in the warm waters of the southeastern United States usually only grow up to 5-6 inches. However, individuals in the frigid Antarctic and Arctic waters can be up to 7 feet long which makes them the largest jellyfish species in the genus Scyphozoa. While not poisonous, these jellyfish have a moderately painful sting, so you should exercise caution if you around them.

Atlantic Lion’s Mane Jellyfish (Image by BirdNation)

In the afternoon on the second day we visited the Calvert Marine Museum. While birding was not our primary purpose we did see some species such as Purple Martins, Fish Crows, Common Grackles, and Mallards around Black Creek. We also watched this large Snapping Turtle swim under the dock.

It’s always a pleasure to visit Maryland. If you’re looking for a new location to explore I highly recommend Calvert County.

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References

• Aquarium of the Pacific. (n.d.). Lion’s Mane Jelly. Aquarium of the Pacific. https://www.aquariumofpacific.org/onlinelearningcenter/species/lions_mane_jelly

2024 Great Backyard Bird Count Day 1

Hi everyone! It’s time for the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC)! This annual event takes place this weekend from February 16-19. It’s easy to participate, so check out https://www.birdcount.org/ to join the fun!

Today Dave, Baby Birder, and I made our way out to Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge for the first day of the count. It was a fairly chilly and windy morning. As expected there was waterfowl galore and lots of gulls. We observed 27 species. Highlights included a Northern Harrier, two Bald Eagles, and a large amount of Gadwalls.

Gull Pond

Edwin B. Forsythe NWR (27 species, 2098 individuals)

• 450 Snow Geese
• 70 Brant
• 255 Canada Geese
• 9 Tundra Swans
• 200 Northern Shovelers
• 160 Gadwall
• 24 Mallards
• 150 American Black Ducks
• 60 Northern Pintails
• 7 Green-winged Teals
• 35 Bufflehead
• 14 Hooded Mergansers
• 55 Ruddy Duck
• 470 Dunlin
• 8 Ring-billed Gulls
• 87 Herring Gulls
• 2 Double-crested Cormorants
• 2 Great Egrets
• 7 Great Blue Herons
• 9 Turkey Vultures
• 1 Northern Harrier
• 2 Bald Eagles
• 11 American Crows
• 1 Carolina Wren
• 3 Dark-eyed Juncos
• 1 Common Grackle
• 5 Yellow-rumped Warblers

Dunlin flock (Image by David Horowitz)

Hooded Merganser male (Image by David Horowitz)

We had an unexpected surprise on the wildlife drive today. Baby Birder, being well into toddlerhood now, isn’t super into birding. He likes birds just fine and is fairly familiar with ducks, geese, and eagles (my favorite was when he saw a Wild Turkey and called it a “duck-eagle” 😂). However, his true passion (obsession lol) is vehicles, so while he likes to see the birds his favorite part of visiting Forsythe is the other vehicles on the wildlife drive. And special for bird count weekend we had…a backhoe!

A GBBC first…a backhoe!

He was quite thrilled to see a backhoe laying gravel out on the road today, so we all had a lovely morning for GBBC Day 1. It’s supposed to snow 2-5 inches tonight into tomorrow so we’ll see what happens for Day 2.

Decade’s End

Hello friends! I’m here writing you at 8:50 pm on 12/31/19, the end of the year and the decade. I can’t believe 2020 is already upon us. 2019 was a very exciting birding year for us and 2020 is going to be just as, if not more, amazing! My New Year’s Resolution is to get back to blogging frequently again because to be honest, 2019 was a little rough to stay on task. At the end of June Dave and I moved from New Jersey to New Hampshire and its been quite an adventure. Here are BirdNation’s 2019 highlights.

Life List Birds (19 for me, 17 for Dave)

• Razorbill: 1/6 at Sandy Hook Beach, NJ (on our 1st wedding anniversary)
• Canvasback: 1/27 at Manasquan Reservoir IBA, NJ
• Pacific Loon: 2/3 at Manasquan Inlet, NJ

Pacific Loon (Image by David Horowitz)

• Pine Siskin: 2/10 at Cloverdale Farm County Park, Barnegat, NJ (Dave was not here for this lifer, it was a lifer for my mom and sister though)
• Red-breasted Nuthatch: 2/17 at Cloverdale Farm County Park, Barnegat, NJ

Red-breasted Nuthatch (Image by BirdNation)

• Northern Saw-whet Owl: 3/1 at undisclosed location

Northern Saw-whet Owl (Image by David Horowitz)

• Winter Wren: 3/1 at Palmyra Cove Nature Park, NJ
• American Woodcock: 3/13 at Rancocas Nature Center, Westampton, NJ
• Yellow-throated Warbler: 4/26 at Flag Ponds Nature Park, Lusby, MD
• Red-headed Woodpecker: 4/27 at Calvert Cliffs SP, Lusby, MD
• Prothonotary Warbler: 4/27 at Battle Creek Cypress Swamp, Prince Frederick, MD

Prothonotary Warbler (Image by David Horowitz)

• Scarlet Tanager: 5/8 at Maria B. Greenwald Park, Cherry Hill, NJ
• Eastern Meadowlark: 6/19 at Chincoteague NWR, VA

Eastern Meadowlark (Image by David Horowitz)

• Bobolink: 7/28 at Parker River NWR, Newbury, MA
• Common Nighthawk: 8/30 at Moores Crossing Railroad Bridge, Manchester, NH
• Nashville Warbler: 9/1 at Miller SP-Pack Monadnock, Peterborough, NH
• Black Guillemot: 11/10 at Odiorne SP, Rye, NH
• American Tree Sparrow: 12/15 at Concord, NH (Dave wasn’t there for this one either, I saw this in the Concord Christmas Bird Count)
• Virginia Rail: 12/26 at Edwin B. Forsythe NWR

My current life list total is 227.

Year List 2019

This is the 2nd year I kept a Year List. 2019’s total was 189, 14 more birds than 2018 (175). The Year List will continue into 2020.

Bird Counts

We participated in many bird counts this year:

• Great Backyard Bird Count: We counted at Amico Island , Haddon Lake Park, Palmyra Cove, Barnegat Lighthouse SP, Cloverdale Farm, and then Haddon Lake again (lol) to find 52 different species and over 1,500 individual birds
• Global Big Day (May 4): 55 species (11 of them warblers) between Rancocas Nature Center and Palmyra Cove
• 2019 Great American Arctic Birding Challenge (March 15-June 1): It was Team BirdNation’s 2nd year participating and we saw 56 species
• October Big Day (October 19): 20 species in Cape Cod, MA
• Concord Christmas Bird Count (December 15): I participated in the Concord CBC. Last year I did the Moorestown, NJ count with my friends from Rancocas, but I wanted to start getting involved in the New Hampshire birding community. I had a blast being on the team and we totaled 51 species at the time (not including a count we were waiting on from 1 person and count week birds).

Birding States

We went birding in 2 new states in 2019: New Hampshire (where we moved to) and Maine, bringing our total to 11 birding states. Other states we visited this year were Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

Onward to 2020…

I’m so excited to start our birding adventures in 2020! There are some pretty cool opportunities coming up, so I will keep you posted on all our new expeditions (and I will catch you up on some of the events of the past few months.) Happy New Year! See you in 2020!

Back to NJ

Hi everyone! I took a little break from blogging since the move to New Hampshire. The transition has been a little rough, but it’ll get easier over time. Since I last wrote we went back to Chincoteague, VA, added Maine to our birding map, and added a few lifers to our list. I’ll catch you up on all of that soon, but this past weekend we visited family back in New Jersey and of course made some time for birding. I was able to visit some of my old stomping grounds: Palmyra Cove Nature Park and Haddon Lake Park.

Palmyra Cove Nature Park, Palmyra, NJ

I really missed Palmyra. Even in the heat of the day, we still observed 34 species. Highlights included a Yellow-billed Cuckoo, American Redstarts, Chimney Swifts, 2 Ospreys, and Wild Turkeys. We also saw a nice variety of butterflies and dragonflies, some turtles, and a groundhog.

Haddon lake park, audubon, nj

The ducks at Haddon Lake are now in eclipse plumage. Waterfowl undergo a simultaneous wing molt, meaning they are rendered flightless for about 20-40 days. Therefore, males, who are usually much more colorful than the females, molt their head plumage in order to blend in. I also learned (thanks to a helpful person on Instagram) that there was an American Black Duck amid the Mallards. We also saw a Red-winged Blackbird fledgling being fed by its parent.

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Green Heron (Image by BirdNation)

Red-winged Blackbird juvenile

Flag Ponds Nature Park, MD

Greetings from Chesapeake Bay! Dave and I decided to have a weekend get-a-way in Calvert County, Maryland. We’ve enjoyed birding in Maryland a few times in the past. But we’re not only here just for birding this time…we are also fossil hunting!

There are a few places throughout Maryland where you can collect fossils. During the Miocene Epoch (10-20 million years ago), southern Maryland was covered by ocean. Once the water receded, cliffs were exposed and started eroding. Some of the most common fossils found in Calvert County are shark teeth and shells, but whales, dolphins, and seabird fossils have also been unearthed here by paleontologists. We spent the day fossil searching and birding at Flag Ponds Nature Park in Lusby, MD.

Highlights:

• Shark Teeth: We ended up finding 3 shark teeth on the beach. Dave found the large tooth and I found the 2 smaller teeth.

Shark Teeth found at Flag Ponds Nature Park, MD (Image by BirdNation)

• Red Fox in the parking lot

Red Fox (Image by David Horowitz)

• Butterflies: Zebra Swallowtail and Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Zebra Swallowtail (Image by BirdNation)

• Shore and Wading Birds: Glossy Ibis, Snowy Egret, Least Sandpiper, Green Herons, Semipalmated Sandpipers

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  Least Sandpiper (Image by BirdNation)

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  Snowy Egret (Image by BirdNation)

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  Green Heron (Image by BirdNation)

• 4 Wood Warblers: Yellow-throated Warbler (life list bird!), Northern Parula, Yellow Warbler, Common Yellowthroat
• Raptors: Red-tailed Hawk, Osprey, juvenile Bald Eagle
• Others: Eastern Bluebird, Blue Grosbeak, Pileated Woodpecker, Belted Kingfisher flying over the ocean

We observed a total of 26 bird species. Flag Ponds is a really beautiful park. I would definitely recommend checking it out if you’re ever in the area. Tomorrow we will be heading out again to a few other parks in the area for fossils and birds. By the way, today is John James Audubon’s birthday. Birding would not quite be the same without him. Check out my post about him here.

Cliffs. (Image by BirdNation)

4 the Waterfowl

On Sunday January 27, Dave and I went to 4 birding locations in Monmouth and Ocean Counties. I was inspired to find some Canvasbacks, so we drove out to the Jersey Shore to see what we could find. Overall, we saw 15 different waterfowl species between the 4 locations. Here are the highlights.

Manasquan Reservoir IBA, Howell, NJ

This was around the time of the polar vortex, so it was pretty cold and most of the reservoir was frozen over. Despite the cold, we observed 20 species.

• Waterfowl: Canvasbacks (life list #2 for 2019, read about life list #1, the Razorbill, here), huge flocks of Common Mergansers and Canada Geese, Hooded Mergansers, Bufflehead, Ring-billed Ducks, female Common Goldeneye, Ruddy Ducks, Mallards, Mute Swans
• Others: 3 Bald Eagles (breeding pair and juvenile), watched an adult and juvenile eating prey on the ice. American Coots, gulls.

Ice Skating Canada Geese (Video by BirdNation)

Common Goldeneye female in flight (Image by BirdNation)

Fisherman’s Cove Conservation Area, Manasquan, NJ

• Waterfowl: Brants, Red-breasted Mergansers, Hooded Merganser, Bufflehead, Long-tailed Duck
• Other: Turkey Vultures, tons of Ring-billed and Herring Gulls, Common Loons

Manasquan Inlet, Manasquan, NJ

Manasquan Inlet is where the Manasquan River meets the Atlantic Ocean. There were a lot of Common Loons that day, and we learned after we got home that there was a Pacific Loon among them, a NJ rarity. I didn’t think to pay close attention to each individual loon since I just assumed they were our normal Common Loons. Lesson learned!

• Waterfowl: Long-tailed Ducks
• Other: Common Loons, Rock Pigeons, Ring-billed Gulls, Dunlin

Common Loon (Image by BirdNation)

Lake of the Lilies, Pt. Pleasant, NJ

Our first visit to Lake of the Lilies was last year for the Great Backyard Bird Count. We saw 13 species of waterfowl that day in February, including a large raft of Redheads and a rare Tufted Duck. This visit was quieter, but we got an amazing views of some Wood Ducks.

• Waterfowl: Wood Ducks, 1 Redhead, Mallards/domestic/hybrid Mallards, Canada Geese, Bufflehead, Hooded Mergansers
• Others: American Coots, gulls, Great Blue Heron

Wood Duck male (Image by BirdNation)

Wood Duck female and male (Image by BirdNation)

Sandy Hook

January 6th is a special day for me. On 1/6/17 I saw my first rare bird, the American White Pelican, with my mom and sister in Tuckerton, NJ. 1/6/18, Dave and I got married!

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  American White Pelican (Image by BirdNation)

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  wedding photo (Image by BirdNation)

January 6th continues to be as special day because in 2019, it’s the day of the Razorbills!

Dave and I decided that we wanted to spend our 1st wedding anniversary birding at a new location. Sandy Hook is an area that I’ve wanted to explore for a while, so we decided that it would be the perfect time. Sandy Hook is a barrier island peninsula and the northern tip of the New Jersey Shore. You can see the Manhattan Skyline across the ocean. Sandy Hook is part of Gateway National Recreation Area, run by the National Park Service.

I heard through my NJ birders groups that there were some Razorbill sightings, so I was hoping we would spot a few. However, whether or not we found Razorbills, Sandy Hook always has interesting sightings.

We started our adventure at Lot A and B Beaches. Black Scoters, Surf Scoters, and Long-tailed Ducks surfed the waves. A few Northern Gannets flew by. We spent about 10 minutes watching the flocks fly by when we spotted our first Razorbills. Razorbills look like little black-and-white jet planes in flight. They fly low to the water in lines and individuals usually rock side-to-side out of sync with their flockmates. The Razorbills were our first life list birds of the year.

Lot C Beach brought us some more Razorbills, Red-breasted Mergansers, Long-tailed Ducks, Black Scoters, a variety of gulls, Northern Gannets, and Common Loons (as well as a nice view of the Manhattan Skyline).

Common Loon (Image by BirdNation)

The other side of the peninsula runs along Sandy Hook Bay and Spermaceti Cove. You get a pretty view of the Atlantic Highlands as you walk across the beach. According to Sandy Hook’s website, the Highlands are the highest point on the eastern seaboard. We observed a group of adult and juvenile Mute Swans, American Black Ducks, Brant, Canada Geese, and many gulls.

Mute Swan Goslings (Image by BirdNation)

We also had the opportunity to see a colony of Atlantic Harbor Seals relaxing on a sandbar. It was fun watching them frolic in the water and spend some time sunning. (Speaking of seals, we had a cool seal experience in Cape Cod, MA last summer!)

Sandy Hook Seals (Image by David Horowitz)

Before leaving, we spent time exploring some of the historical sites and the lighthouse. I definitely plan on birding again at Sandy Hook.

2018 Review: Year of the Bird

Happy New Year’s Eve! 2018 was official the Year of the Bird, and it was quite a year! Here are some of the highlights from our birding year.

January

• Dave and I got married on January 6, the anniversary of my first rare bird, the American White Pelican!
• Added Common Goldeneyes to the life list.

February

• Great Backyard Bird Count: 33 species, 793 individual birds. Plus 2 Life Birds: Tufted Duck and Redheads

Tufted Duck (Image by BirdNation)

• 2 Snowy Owls at Edwin B. Forsythe NWR.

March

• Birding honeymoon to Chincoteague Island, Virginia. We visited Blackwater NWR in Maryland,Chincoteague NWR in Virginia, and Prime Hook NWR in Delaware.

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  Ponies on Parade (Image by David Horowitz)

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  Snow Geese (Image by David Horowitz)

• Added 2 Life List Birds at Chincoteague: Brown-headed Nuthatch and Lesser Black-backed Gull
• Snowy Owl at Forsythe (totaling to 3 Snowies this year)

Snowy Owl 3/18/18 (Image by David Horowitz)

• Saw 81 species from January 1 to the first day of spring for Year List

April

• My first dolphins!
• Added Wilson’s Snipe to our life list at Taylor’s Wildlife Preserve

May

• Global Big Day at Forsythe NWR: 60 species
• Our first Red Knots at Delaware Bay
• Participated in the 2018 Great American Arctic Birding Challenge with 62 species recorded between March 1 and June 1
• Added 4 Life List Birds: Caspian Tern, Northern Parula, Canada Warbler, and Red Knots
• Added 71 species to Year List, bring total to 152 by the first day of summer

June

Started working at Rancocas Nature Center

July

• 200th Bird: Roseate Spoonbill!

Roseate Spoonbill juvenile (Image by David Horowitz)

• Also added to life list: Yellow-crowned Night Heron, Saltmarsh Sparrow, Chimney Swift

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron pair with eggs (Image by BirdNation)

August

Cape Cod vacation! Added 3 new Life List birds: Roseate Tern, Black Tern, Great Shearwater. Also saw my first Grey Seals. Went birding on the way home in Connecticut.

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  Seal Head Shot 2 (Image by David Horowitz)

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  Marsh Land (Image by BirdNation)

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  Black Tern juvenile (Image by BirdNation)

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  Common Loon on land (Image by BirdNation)

September

• Had my last birding trip of my 20s at Forsythe on 9/16 😂
• Added 14 species to Year List for summer, making total 166

October

• First October Global Big Day at Cape May: huge Tree Swallow flocks and Western Palm Warblers. 31 total species

• Gave my first birding presentation at Rancocas Nature Center, “The Miracle of Avian Migration’, on October 13 (World Migratory Bird Day)

November

• Chincoteague Waterfowl Weekend: huge Snow Geese flocks and American White Pelicans

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  Snow Goose Flock (Image by David Horowitz)

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  Black-bellied Plover nonbreeding (Image by BirdNation)

• Added 9 more species to Year List for fall, making final total 175

December

• Participated in my first Audubon Christmas Bird Count on 12/23 in Moorestown, NJ, with 35 total species for our count. Unsure of total count for other teams in the “Moorestown” circle. (Fun fact: Moorestown, NJ was one of the 25 towns to participate in very first Christmas Bird on December 25, 1900)
• Close-up seaducks at Barnegat Light: Surf Scoters, Common Eiders, Black Scoters, Harlequin Ducks, and Long-tailed Ducks

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• Final hike 2018: Taylor’s Wildlife Preserve

Final 2018 Stats

• Year List: 175 species
• Life List: 16 new additions, current total 207.
• Birding in 7 States: New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts

Looking forward to birding in 2019!

Chincoteague Waterfowl Weekend

We are on Thanksgiving break, so Dave and I took a one-day getaway to Chincoteague, VA. Thanksgiving weekend is Waterfowl Weekend at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge. Being a waterfowl enthusiast, I thought it was a perfect time to head down to Virginia’s Eastern Shore to seek out winter visitors. (We went to Chincoteague for our honeymoon in March, check out that trip here). Tom’s Cove Beach Highlights

• Snow Geese! Over a thousand of them! The longer we watched the flock, the more Snow Geese arrived. They circled above us as they joined the huge flock resting on the beach. Mixed within the sea of white were “blue morphs”, a color variation of the Snow Goose. Individuals will mate for life, choosing the same color morph as their family members. Two white morphs will have white offspring, a pure dark with a white morph will likely have dark morphs (sometimes with white bellies), and two blue morphs will likely have blue offspring, although white offspring are possible. Dave spotted two individual with bands, one in which he got a clear picture of.

Snow Goose Parade (Image by BirdNation)

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  Snow Goose Flock (Image by David Horowitz)

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  Banded Snow Goose (Image by David Horowitz)

Snow Geese soaring overhead (Image by David Horowitz)

• Shorebirds: Black-bellied Plovers, Dunlins, Sanderlings, Willets, and Yellowlegs

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  Black-bellied Plover nonbreeding (Image by BirdNation)

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  Dunlins on the go (Image by BirdNation)

• Lots of Gulls (Ring-billed, Herring, Great Black-backed), Common and Red-bellied Loons, Surf and White-winged Scoters, Long-tailed Ducks, Bufflehead, Forster’s Terns.

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  No Parking Gull (Image by BirdNation)

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  Great Blue Heron (Image by BirdNation)

Extended Wildlife Loop Highlights

Chincoteague NWR has a 3.2 mile wildlife loop for walking, bicycling, and driving. For Waterfowl Weekend, the refuge opens up a 7.5 mile service (15 miles round trip) road to extend the drive. I’ll admit it was a little strange at first because it just seemed like a road with dead trees. However, further down the trail there were pools and dikes with many birds.

• American White Pelicans!: We saw 2 American White Pelicans floating and flying over a pool. It was Dave’s first White Pelicans (I saw my first in NJ, read about the awesome experience with Mr. Pelican  here). I discovered while entering my checklist on e-Bird that the pelicans were considered rare in our location, so we were lucky enough to have some “rare” birds on this trip. At this time of year American White Pelicans are usually in Florida, the Gulf Coast, Mexico, or parts of California.

American White Pelicans (Image by BirdNation)

• Yellow-rumped Warblers, more Bufflehead, Northern Shovelers, Northern Pintails, White-breasted Nuthatch, Snowy and Great Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Bald Eagles
• And of course, the famous Chincoteague Wild Ponies. In March we had a cool experience of the wild ponies parading past our vehicle. There were a lot more visitors this time, so the ponies caused quite a spectacle (and traffic!). We again had a pretty “up close and personal” encounter with the ponies, although I don’t think the actually realized how close they came to our car. They were too busy just being wild ponies to notice how close they were.

Chincoteague Wild Ponies cause a commotion 

I’m so thankful that we had the time to head down for a fun-filled day at Chincoteague NWR. There’s always something amazing to see on Chincoteague Island.

Cape Cod Vacation: Monomoy Island Excursions

This is Part 3 of our Cape Cod Vacation. You can check out Part 1 (Race Point Beach) here and Part 2 (Skaket Beach) here.

On August 14th, the second day of our Cape Cod vacation, Dave I and went seal watching with Monomoy Island Excursions. We took the 10 am seal cruise on their boat, The Perseverance from Harwich Port into Nantucket Sound. The cruise includes stops at Wychmere Harbor, Stage Harbor in Chatham, and Monomoy NWR; as well as pass many of the popular beaches along the cape.

The seal cruise was definitely the highlight of my trip. It was a beautiful morning and I enjoyed every moment. Not only did we have an amazing experience seeing Grey Seals, we also saw many birds.

Highlights of our Seal Cruise

• The seals, of course! We saw a herd of at least 70 Grey Seals on our trip. Low tide hit its peak 2 hours before our cruise, so many of the seals we saw were relaxing on a sand bar. It was fascinating watching the seals interact with each other, vocalize, and curiously watch us back.

Group of Grey Seals (Image by David Horowitz)

Grey Seals Sunning (Image by David Horowitz)

Seal Head Shot 1 (Image by David Horowitz)

Seal Head Shot 2 (Image by David Horowitz)

Grey Seals (Image by David Horowitz)

 

• Our “Winter Birds” on summer vacation. We saw immature Common Eiders, Black Scoters, and White-winged Scoters, which we usually see in New Jersey during the winter.

Common Eiders (Image by David Horowitz)

• Lots of seabirds, including Herring Gulls, Laughing Gulls, Great Black-backed Gulls, Forster’s Terns, Roseate Terns, Least Terns, Common Terns, and a Great Shearwater.
• A few hundred Double-crested Cormorants
• Many Osprey and a Northern Harrier

Captain Osprey (Image by David Horowitz)

• A huge school of fish under the boat (in the thousands)
• Stage Harbor Lighthouse 

• Shorebirds and Wading Birds, including Willets, Snowy Egrets, Short-billed Dowitchers, Semipalmated Sandpipers, Sanderlings, Spotted Sandpipers, Greater Yellowlegs, and a Great Egret
• The Staff. Our Captain and the naturalist on our cruise were really friendly and informative. A few minutes into the trip, noticing our Cape May/NJ Audubon binocular straps, the naturalist (I don’t remember his name) asked if we were birders. It turns out that he’s been birding on Cape Cod for over 30 years. He spent many years leading tours at Monomoy, as well as participating in the local birding community. He is also a bird bander. Throughout the trip he would come over and talk to us about birds. It was really fun to talk to as well as learn from him.

My seal cruise with Monomoy Island Excursions was fantastic and will certainly be an experience that I won’t soon forget.

Journey On (Image by BirdNation)