Walk with Me on the Red Trail (at Cape May Point State Park)

We didn't have much time yesterday, so we chose the half-mile Red Trail. We wanted to head home before the predicted snowstorm made travel tricky. It was the last full day of winter, so don't expect any Rose Mallow blooms or summer shorebirds, but there's plenty of cool stuff to look at. Keep in mind I'm no nature expert, so I can't always identify things. I just shoot at objects that look interesting and hope that someone will tell me what it is. First, the vegetation...

What IS that?

Is this what a cattail looks like when it is aged?

Male cardinals are easy to spot and easy to identify. We saw two; the second of whom was less shy about having his portrait taken...

Did you know Cape May Point is a mecca for birders? These trails are designed for birders of all levels, from me all the way up to the experts who write the books. There are structures throughout the park for people armed with cameras and binoculars...

Watch out for this bird: he might fly into you.

Okay, this is what a bird blind really is.

Expert birders don't get excited about mute swans because they are not native to these parts. Okay. But you can probably agree that they are beautiful in their snowy white feathers as they float on the water. I've witnessed swans flying overhead a few times, and it is breathtaking! Those birds move a lot of air and in so doing, they make some interesting sounds: whoooop, whoooop, whoooop! It's difficult to get a clear photo of a bird in flight, but here are some attempts:

Ducks are ducks, right? Well according to Roger Tory Peterson and his Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America, there are many varieties of duck-like birds. I tried to match my photos up to the illustrations in this book where they are classified by family, and to the photographs in Stan Tekiela's Birds of New Jersey where they are classified by color. You may be tempted to call this duck a Mallard because of its green head, but there's another candidate called the Northern Shoveler. When the duck in the front stopped fishing long enough for me to see his back and tail, they matched the picture of the Northern Shoveler more than the Mallard. So I could be wrong, and I could just refer to it as a duck, but here it is:

Northern Shoveler?

Likewise, I could call these guys "ducks" or "pointing ducks," or I could attempt a better ID with the help of my reference books. My best guess is American Wigeon. These are in the area in the winter, and the feather and beak colors look like a match,

In this same little lake, we spotted a small brown swimming animal. It was definitely not a bird because it was diving, staying under for up to a minute, and swimming in a straight line. We saw the tail, and it was too small to be a beaver. Could it be an otter? Do they live in New Jersey? What else could it be??

I've blogged before about how I can't resist shooting the Cape May Lighthouse with all sorts of natural frames and backgrounds. (Here, here, and here, among others.) I did that yesterday, and my favorite is this one with the pretty grasses in front. I had to sit on the trail to get the grasses just right.

Celebrating My Dad's 100th Birthday in Authentic Cape May

Opposing traffic in the Delaware Bay on a hazy July day

It's hard not to think about him in this house that he modified and added to, and furnished with woodworked objects he made while at sea. The fig tree (it had a rough time this winter) and the magnolia he planted are still thriving outside in the yard, but his vegetable garden is gone. Today would have been my Dad's hundredth birthday, and as he wasn't around to celebrate, I tried to imagine what he might like to do.

Albert Montet, ca. 1966

He liked ships and boats having been a career US Coast Guard guy, so I figured I should spend time on some kind of vessel. I selected the Cape May-Lewes Ferry because he liked that particular fleet of ships. He lived in Cape May before the ferry came in 1964, and enjoyed cruising on it once it started running. It was more like a bus on water then, and I think he'd be amused by the newer, more comfortable ferries that run now.

The ferry waits for me to board. (From the Skywalk)

I brought my camera because Dad liked to shoot photos (SLR) and so do I (DSLR). He'd have liked these Osprey chicks I caught at the Lewes (Delaware) Terminal--he was a nature guy, too.

4 chicks

The dolphins were out today, but not exactly posing for photographs.

Dolphins frolicking near the ferry.

One thing I wasn't able to do is swim in the Cape May Canal. Dad used to love to do this, and I remember going with him and the rest of the family. It used to be a big-deal, right-of-passage to swim across and back, but I never did that. At some point in the 1970s they widened and deepened the canal (built during World War II) and there was no more beach and no more swimming. There's way too much boat traffic anyway.

Canal traffic

It just so happened that Dad's 100th birthday fell on a full moon, and even better, a SUPER moon! The Friends of the Cape May Lighthouse (and I am one) open the lighthouse on summer evening with a full moon so that visitors can climb to the top to take in the moonlit view. I think Dad would have liked this because it's an authentic nautical Cape May thing combined with a natural phenomenon. He would not have liked the crowd, and neither did I except that two-way traffic on those narrow spiral wrought-iron stairs slows traffic down a bit, and it would have been impossible to "run" up and down as I posted (tongue-in-cheek) on Facebook. Anyhoo, without a tripod and with all of the other folks, it was difficult to shoot clever photos. I resorted to some quick iPhone snaps.

7-12-14 Super Moon over the Atlantic Ocean with the CM Lighthouse beam

Cape May Lighthouse

I think Dad would approve of his birthday festivities. In just under eight years, it will be Mom's turn: shopping and ice cream, I think (also in Cape May).

Views from the Promenade (Cape May, New Jersey, USA)

Go to Cape May, take a camera, take a walk, and shoot. I used my iPhone which was also keeping track of our distance (5 miles total!) and calories burned through my pedometer app. Here's a sample of the photos you're likely to take away from the 1.4-mile Promenade...

Sneaking up on the Cape May Light

 
I never get tired of shooting the Cape May Light. Even when I'm supposed to be enjoying the Cape May Point State Park Nature Trails, I find myself sneaking photos of the light through the cat tails and mallow blossoms. I'm supposed to be searching the skies and branches for unusual birds to photograph so that I can later compare my photos with the pictures in my bird books. But then an unexpected view of my favorite beacon. So here are some samples from a hot and hazy August day on the Yellow Nature Trail; it seems like months ago, but it was merely a few weeks.

These are the mallows I mentioned above

I see you, lighthouse!

The Full Moon Climb (Cape May Lighthouse)

The Cape May Point Lighthouse at dusk

If your calendar is the kind that shows the phases of the moon, you will see that tonight the moon is full. The full moon has been romanticized over the years, but what does it really mean to you? Maybe it explains odd behavior of coworkers, customers, and offensive drivers on this day, but can you think of anything else? Wolfmen, maybe? Well, if you are in Cape May, NJ, during this summer season the full moon signals an opportunity to climb the Cape May Lighthouse at night by the light of the moon!

Steps, steps, and more steps (199 to be exact)

Porthole window

I couldn't resist the opportunity this evening even though the skies were cloudy and the moon did not actually make an appearance. It was a fun climb, though I suspect an extra fifty or so cast-iron steps were added to the original 199 since I climbed last year. (Is that possible?) I stopped off at each window along the way to shoot pictures and breathe a little. Did you know that windows were placed facing different directions to catch the sun at various times of the year? It's more obvious in the Cape May Light than some others that the thickness between the inner and outer walls gradually gets smaller closer to the top. It's easiest to see this at the windows. There's about six feet between the inner and outer brick walls at the base, and up where the round porthole style windows are the walls come together (almost--the wall is about twelve inches thick there).

I'm pleased with the shots I got from the windy deck at the top of the light tonight, experimenting with various settings and buttons on my camera for nighttime shooting.Check them out:

That's St. Mary's retreat for nuns with the Delaware Bay behind. Rumor has it civilians can retreat there, too. Who's in?

This is the town of Cape May Point under a tempestuous sky. That's the Delaware Bay back there.

That's the bird sanctuary in the center, the WWII bunker to the right on the beach, the City of Cape May in the background, and the Atlantic Ocean to the right in back.

This one is a little blurry, but I like it anyway. I was using the roof of my car to steady the camera, but it didn't work as well as my tripod would have...if I had thought to bring it.