Memories of Cape May, New Jersey Day 7

Up again at 5:30am and at Higbee by 6:30am but this morning I decided to give the dike a miss and birded the fields instead.

Higbee Beach Dike

I had good views of Blackpoll Warbler and Indigo Bunting but missed getting a decent view of a White-Eyed Vireo as it flew and then just disappeared.
I then spent some time on the Flight Deck getting photo's of species I'd seen earlier in the week such as Carolina Wren and Brown Thrasher.

Carolina Wren

Brown Thrasher

We then headed over to the Cape May Airfield again. There were at least fifteen American Kestrels around the runways. We also spotted a flock of Horned (Shore) Larks and we had a flyover American Pipit. On the far side of the runway outside of the perimeter fence were a couple of Wild Turkeys.

Horned Larks

We took the opportunity whilst there to have brunch at the Flight Deck Diner before heading north to the Belleplain State Forest for some woodland birds.

The Flight Deck Diner

Belleplain is a 20,000 acre forest established in 1928 for public recreation, timber production and wildlife management. We were advised to find an old scout camp on one of the trails and here James used his tape lure to entice our target species, White-Breasted Nuthatch. We also saw Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker, Carolina Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Pine Warbler and heard Red-Breasted Nuthatch.

We tried several other sites around the forest but apart from good views of Ruby-Crowned Kinglet we added nothing new.

White-Fronted Nuthatch

Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker

Pine Warbler

We now headed to Stone Harbour to try for Piping Plover again, with no luck again, perhaps due to the presence of two hunting Peregrine Falcons. We did see good numbers of Semi-Palmated Plovers and Sandpipers though.

Stone Harbour

We went back to the motel early tonight as we had to pack for our flight tomorrow and then out for our evening meal. Tonight my beers were Anglesea and Jawjacker.