Memories of Cape May, New Jersey - Day 1

The trip almost got off to a disastrous start when I nearly missed my flight. I had travelled up to London the previous afternoon by train and stayed at the Eazy Hotel near Heathrow Airport. I had enjoyed a good meal at the White Hart, a large Fuller's pub opposite the hotel, washed down with a couple of pints of Fuller's ales. Wild River and Chiswick.
Somehow the next morning I convinced myself that I had plenty of time and instead of getting a taxi to terminal 2 I went on the shuttle bus and arrived ridiculously late. I got into a queue behind around twenty Japanese tourists but realised I wasn't going to make it and called to one of the officials for help. He very kindly rushed me to the check-in desk where I was informed I'd made it with literally a minute to spare. As it was I still had to run for the plane as it was so far away.
Once seated on the plane though I could relax and found myself sitting next to one of my companions for the week, Ian. We had a tedious but uneventful flight to Newark arriving around 11:15am (USA time). The immigration and customs went very smoothly and soon Ian and I had met up with the others on the trip and were waiting in arrivals for our guide James P Smith.
James is an ex-pat from Sheffield and has lived in the US for around 10 years leading trips for Birdfinders all over the States and Israel. We made our way to our bus

via the monorail which afforded us great views of the New York skyline in the distance. We arrived in West Cape May around 3pm having seen several Turkey Vultures en-route

We checked in and sorted our rooms and then headed out to do some birding at the Hawk Watch Point at Cape May State Park.

We had a great spectacle of hundreds of Tree Swallows migrating over the watch point before making the crossing over Delaware Bay. The presence of all these migrating hirundines attracted both Merlins & Peregrine Falcons.
On the Bunker Pond we had our first views of Great Blue Heron and Little Blue Heron, the latter all juveniles in their pure white forms. Other waders included Greater Yellowlegs

,Snowy Egrets and American Oystercatchers. There were also good numbers of both Green & Blue Winged Teals and American Black Ducks. Gulls were mostly American Herring Gull and Laughing Gull also in good numbers.
We spent a couple of hours at this premier birding hot spot before heading back to the motel for a wash and change and heading out for our evening meal and the daily roll call.
A good start our trip and we were all ready for a good nights sleep in readiness for tomorrows birding.