Walking the Boards in Colorful Wildwood, NJ

It used to be that a trip to the Wildwood Boardwalk was the highlight of the summer: the lights, the crowds, the food, the games, and best of all, the rides! As a preschooler in the 1960s I preferred this nautical ride featuring boats that travel in circles. One of the boats at that time even had my name painted on the back, and it's not often that you find boats or anything named 'Margie.' The kiddie boats are still seaworthy and they still have their brass bells even if they no longer have names. I was delighted to see that this ride was still there.
   

The kiddie rides of the twenty-first century are fancier as you can see by this faux hot-air balloon wheel...

The Balloon Race ride

...and this elephant ride:

I took in one grown-up (sort-of) ride while I was exploring the colors of Wildwood. For a different perspective, I jumped aboard the Venetian Carousel, strapped myself on that painted pony, and snapped photos as we went round and round.

The Boardwalk games look much the same as they did in my childhood. There's no more cigarette wheel like my friend worked at back in college, but instead (I pretended not to see) a wheel with all candy prizes. Some of the prizes are more sophisticated (I saw modern name-brand communication devices at one), but many look much the same as they always have.

And some were decidedly twenty-first century:

I walked the length of the two-mile Boardwalk, taking in the sites while I sipped my fresh-squeezed lemonade.

Curley's Fries Lemonade Presses

I resisted the urge to bring home a free hermit crab in a purchased cage, although at various points in my life I have been known as a hermit crab parent.

Tempting...not

All good things must come to an end, and as I reached the North Wildwood end of the Boardwalk I realized that $3 was a small price to pay for a ride to the Wildwood Crest end on the famous Sightseer tram. These tram cars have been in operation on the Boards since 1949, and the originals were built for the 1939 World's Fair! (Did you know that?) Some of the original cars are still in use. 

From aboard the Sightseer: "Watch the tram car, please."

Here's a video I shot from aboard the Sightseer in 2011:

Getting to Know the Birds Who Live in the Marsh: Skimmer Salt Marsh Safari

A Black Skimmer, left, and a Laughing Gull at the marsh

I count myself among the world's worst bird watchers, but I don't lack enthusiasm for the avocation. Usually, I look at the birds through my camera's longer lens and shoot a few photos that I will compare to the illustrations in my bird guides later on. Occasionally, I will treat myself to a guided birding excursion where experts tell me what I'm looking at. My favorite of these excursions is the Skimmer Salt Marsh Safari, between Cape May and Wildwood Crest. (The Skimmer is named after a bird, see photo.) Captain Ginny and Captain Ed know where to find the most interesting birds, and they describe them in ways that help us less adept birders remember who's who.

Take for example the first birds we saw yesterday, the Laughing Gulls. These guys come here to nest and raise their chicks. As many species do, they fix up their appearance in order to attract the best possible mate. Their heads turn black as if they'd visited their expert colorist, and they appear to put on white eyeliner. As I mentioned in my two previous posts about the lighthouse full moon climb and the horseshoes on the beach, the full moon occurred Monday. This was good news for the Friends of the Lighthouse and the Delaware Bay horseshoes, but sad news indeed for the Laughing Gull community. They had prepared their nest in the salt marsh grass, laid their eggs, and then extra-high tides from the full moon and windy weather washed them all away. Heartbreaking! When we cruised by, we could see them busily rebuilding nests to attempt another go at families.

This Laughing Gull is carrying nesting material to his/her new home.

My father always loved seeing egrets because they reminded him of his childhood in Louisiana. They still seem exotic to me even though I see them often around these parts. This is a Snowy Egret, and you can see his yellow feet. We saw many of these yesterday, and many Great Egrets who have yellow bills and black feet. (Now will I remember that?)

"I am a Snowy Egret and I have yellow feet."

 

 

An Osprey couple in their nest

The Osprey are easy to identify because they build their huge nests up high, usually, and you can usually see the mom hanging up there with chicks or eggs. The father might be up there, too, but he might be spotted nearby. There are around a dozen Osprey nests in the marsh, remarkable if you remember how the Ospreys were endangered not so long ago. The use of the pesticide DDT in the 1960s and 1970s caused their eggs to get too soft, and chicks could not mature. Awareness was raised by Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring, and eventually DDT was banned. Happily, the Osprey population recovered. The full moon tides were unkind to some of the Osprey pairs in the marsh--those that built their nests too low lost their eggs. Unlike the Laughing Gulls, they are not able to re-nest this year and now are just hanging around until it is time to fly south.

The Oystercatcher is the coolest marsh bird, just because of its bright orange bill. I'm pretty sure I heard Captain Ginny say that these Oystercatchers don't actually eat oysters here, but the long, skinny razor clams. They pop the razor clam shell open with their long orange bill and eat the yummy clam from inside. It takes awhile for the kids to learn this trick, and Captain Ginny reports that they often see the young ones with razor clams stuck to their bills looking a bit like Pinocchio!

An Oystercatcher shows off his carrot-like bill.

Captain Ginny and Captain Ed don't just teach us about birds in the marsh. At one point, they scooped up a clump of brown seaweed and examined what was living in it. There was a brown speckled Laughing Gull egg, two kinds of tiny shrimp, and two kinds of mussels. Near the end of the trip, Captain Ed pulled out a plastic tub full of marsh life: a large rock crab, sea squirts (they do squirt water when feeling threatened), three kinds of welks (I thought they were conchs but conchs do not live in NJ), and more crabs and critters whose names I do not remember.

Captain Ginny shows us a tiny shrimp that lives in marsh seaweed (photo by Cara Cotellese)

The Skimmer Salt Marsh Safari is a fine way to spend a couple hours at the shore and learn about those marshes we drive past everyday. I'm getting better with my bird identification skills, at least with those that live in the marsh!

Me and Cara on the 40-foot Skimmer (photo by Captain Ginny)