CAPE MAY BIRDS
Birds through the Seasons
The special nature of Cape May County
In April and May and again in August though
By Pete Dunne
November, millions of migrating songbirds
descend upon the Cape May peninsula to
rest and feed. The peninsula serves as a fun-
I
F YOU WEREvisiting New York City, Mass plus Movement nel, catching and directing birds into proper
you’d take in a Broadway Show, Divided by the Horizon habitats along its length. During these “migra-
wouldn’t you? If this was a family vaca- When we regard the natural world, we’re cap- tory fallouts” birds can be so concentrated that
tion to Arizona, it would be unthinkable to tivated by the image of great massed move- they are, literally, underfoot.
miss the Grand Canyon. So don’t even ments of animals. The wildebeest on the What about summer? The second and
think of visiting Cape May and not spend- Serengeti Plains. Caribou migrations on the third week in June is about the only time
ing some time to seek out and enjoy birds North Slope of Alaska. Monarch butterflies when birds are not migrating through the
in North America’s most famous bird heading south into the mountains of Mexico.
watching destination. Cape May, NJ.! While Cape May doesn’t offer wilde-
That’s right. Cape May is ranked among beest or caribou, it does enjoy a spectacular
North America’s top 10 birding destina- monarch migration. Over 500 monarch
tions and top 50 bird watching locations in butterflies a minute (yes, 500 every 60 sec-
the world. A total of 416 species of birds onds) have been recorded heading down
have been recorded here since records the dunes at Cape May Point.
have been kept – and in Cape May, that Cape May also supports one of the great-
means back to the early 1800s when est hawk migrations on earth – with an aver-
Alexander Wilson (the “Father of American age of 50,000 hawks per year counted at the
Ornithology”) and artist/painter John Cape May Hawk Watch conducted by the
James Audubon studied here. Cape May Bird Observatory
Today, thousands of visitors from all over In spring, the beaches of the Delaware Bay
the world come to South Jersey and Cape are jammed with northbound shorebirds.
May specifically to watch birds. Many Fresh up from South American where they
thousands more become introduced to spend the northern winter, over a hundred
America’s second largest and fastest grow- million shorebirds arrive in Cape May to feast
ing outdoor activity simply by visiting. on the bounty of horseshoe crab eggs that
Fact. If you are in Cape May now, you wash up on the beaches of Delaware Bay.
are no more than the length of a football The birds double their weight and in less than
field from some bird species. At certain two weeks they depart on a direct, non-stop
times and places, you can view thousands. flight north to their Arctic breeding grounds.
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