Spring in Cape May

Cape May is best known for its fall migration, but springtime on the peninsula beckons with its own fine birding and migration spectacles. Among the highlights is the mass spawning of Horseshoe Crabs, living fossils which breed in the thousands on the beaches of Delaware Bay, their tiny eggs providing vital sustenance to thousands of shorebirds on their long journeys north. The county’s woods echo with the songs of more than 20 species of wood-warblers, with local breeders including Pine, Yellow, Black-and-white, Blue-winged, Prothonotary, Worm-eating, Hooded, and Yellow-throated warblers, Ovenbird, Common Yellowthroat, Louisiana Waterthrush, and American Redstart. Yellow-breasted Chats, Eastern Kingbirds, Indigo Buntings, Blue Grosbeaks, and Prairie Warblers shout challenges from overgrown fields, and we’ll compare Scarlet and Summer tanagers, Baltimore and Orchard orioles, Forster’s, Common, and Least terns, and a variety of flycatchers.

Along the bay and ocean, Marsh Wrens and Seaside and Saltmarsh sparrows chortle from reed stems, while Clapper Rails lurk below, and more than two dozen species of shorebirds–including a small but regular number of vagrant Curlew Sandpipers, a few remaining Purple Sandpipers, and the endangered and declining Piping Plover–patter on the shores. And spring “overshoots,'” birds like Mississippi Kites and Swainson’s Warbler, are always possible. From our base in a comfortable beachfront hotel, we’ll aim to survey this magical peninsula’s birdlife in one fun-filled week. Join us and see what we turn up.