This is the last part of the 4 part series on Cape May.  We finish up our trip with a morning at Avalon Beach, on the eastern shore of New Jersey, just a short drive north of Cape May.  A popular site for vacation homes with beautiful beaches, today we were looking for birds. The long boat for the lifeguards is at the ready but fortunately not in use.   

In the afternoon we take a tour boat to the Rips, where the Atlantic Ocean meets the  Delaware Bay.  The currents and resulting shoals attract fish and the birds that eat  them.

We saw the Great Black-backed gull above on the salt marsh tour (Part 2), and here at Avalon we see them again, but at the shoreline. 

We get the help of our guide, Andy Jones, whose voice you can hear over the surf in the short video below.  The Great Black-backs are standing at the water's edge picking at a small shark when a Lesser Black-backed Gull walks in front of the group. 

The Great Black-backed is the largest species of gull in the world.  They have stout bodies, thick necks, broad wings, and a heavy slight bulbous bill.  The Lesser Black-backed gull is smaller, with a grayish back as noted by Andy in the video, with legs closer to yellow, in contrast to the Great Black-back's pink legs. (Reference: The Cornell Lab All About Birds)

In the images below we see the Great Black-backed Gull picking at the shark.

The image below is a Lesser Black-backed in flight.  The yellow legs are evident. 

In Part 2 we saw this tern on the salt marsh boat tour (picture above), and I promised another round of terns at Avalon Beach, images below, in flight over the surf. 

We saw a mature Bald Eagle steal a fish from an Osprey at the Hawk Watch in Part 1.  Here we  spot a juvenile in the air over the beach.  Juveniles  have mottled brown wings and tail.  It will take up to 5 years for a juvenile to reach adult plumage, and the birds may not begin to mate until 6 years of age.  Bald Eagles live between 15 and 30 years, with the oldest recorded at 38 years. (Ref: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service).

The Rips is an area of shoals where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Delaware Bay, not far from the ferry line, as shown above.   The mixing of currents creates the shoals, basically large sandbars.  The shoals in turn create large waves or swells.  Fish will concentrate in this area, making it a good place for fishermen, be they two legged in fiberglass boats, or two winged with feathers.  And of course, if there are birds, there are birders!  

The water can be treacherous, especially in the fall.  We were on a solid steel vessel with a skilled skipper.  Nevertheless, it was a rough ride at times. 

Below, a view of the southern tip of Cape May, with a view of the convention center, and the line of hotels, including ours, on the beach. 

We have seen the Double-crested Cormorant, perched in Post 2 and in flight in Post 3.  Here we see another species, the Great Cormorant, perched on navigational hardware  adjacent to the channel.  

The Great Cormorant is larger than the Double-crested Cormorant, and sports a white throat and yellow chin.  The Double-crested Cormorant has a dark throat and orange chin.  The Great Cormorant above is likely a juvenile, with mottled breast.   The bird below looks darker, and is likely older. 

Double-crested Cormorants will travel in large flocks, seen here over the beach at Avalon on the morning of the 17th. 

The trip to the Rips was great, but the number of photo-ops was limited due to the distances involved (the birds were really far away) combined with the movement of the boat.  Imagine holding your camera and a 500 mm zoom lens steady while  balancing on a bongo-board! 

However, there was a great opportunity to "fly" in tandem with a Double-crested Cormorant who was following the boat. Above and below we see the bird working hard to get into the air, my guess is trying match the boat speed which was less than full flight speed.  This bird was hopping on the water for quite some time and distance.

We get good views of the wing and feathers as well as the use of the feet and tail. 

In the images that follow, our companion is airborne . . . .

Below he decides to hit the water again.  Perhaps he has seen some fish, and wants to come back down.  Feet and tail come down, then the tail flairs to increase drag and decrease speed. 

Tail drags above, with landing below. 

We have reached the end of the day. time to head back to port. 

The sun is setting to the west, and we are followed by a congregation of shorebirds looking for food. 

Well, that's a wrap for Cape May!   A birding hotspot almost any time of year.  I hope you have enjoyed these posts.  

Best wishes for 2022!   More to come in January: winter birding in SE Arizona!

Happy Trails!

In the last 2 posts we have been in Cape May, New Jersey; this post covers our one day excursion to Lewes (pronounced lew-es) Delaware, to explore Cape Henlopen State Park and Fort Miles.   

In the photo below, shot with my trusty iPhone, a sharp eye can see that we are lined up for the ferry at 6:40 am, after a breakfast stop at Wawa.   The sun was rising as we made the crossing to Lewes.

The map below comes from Lightroom, and shows the location for most of the images I captured in this 4 part series on Cape May.   Cape Henlopen is almost due south of Cape May, with Delaware Bay to the west, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east.

The ferry has a lot of room at 7 am, pick any deck chair you want! 

I was struck by the early morning cloud formation above.  It Looks a bit like the pelicans in flight we will see on our way back.

Birds like to follow boats underway likely looking for food.  If you have a camera with a long lens, riding a ferry is a great chance to capture birds in flight.  They often move at about the same speed as the ferry, depending on the species.  Shooting from an upper deck will likely put you eye to eye with your subject.  And, as always, light is so important, and the sun at 8 am on this Saturday was cooperating.

In Part 2 of this series, we saw Double-crested Cormorants perched on pilings in the salt marsh.  In flight they retain the slight curvature to the neck, which we see here.   

We landed at the Lewes Ferry Terminal, and drove into the park at the north side. The park runs north to south along the beach from the northern tip of the cape to Gordon's Pond to the south seen at the bottom right of the map above.  The northern  part of the park has walking paths with great trees and understory and the Fort Miles Historical Area.  On busy weekends watch out for bicyclists and skateboarders. 

Brown-headed Nuthatches live year round in the SE U.S. from eastern Texas south to Florida and as far north as Cape Henlopen.  This bird was tough to spot and photograph, hopping in the understory, managing to always keep leaves and branches between himself and my lens.  Here are two of my best shots. 

Brown-headed Nuthatches favor pine forests, present at Cape Henlopen.  Note that many of these trees are invasive Japanese Black Pines  planted by the Army in WW II to camouflage the military installation.  There is an active program to remove them and allow native plant species to recover, restoring the ecosystem to its prior self.  In the interim this nuthatch is enjoying the insects that live on the trees.

For more on the nuthatches we see in Arizona (Pygmy, White-breasted and Red-breasted), see this post from The Meadow Trail on the top of Mt Lemmon, September 25, 2021. ​

In the image below we see one of the many walkways in the northern end of the park, with a view between the trees across the beach and toward the Atlantic.   The trees shown here are likely the invasive Japanese Black Pine, slated for removal.

Golden-crowned Kinglets breed throughout southern Canada and winter in the U.S., with some year round presence in the western states.  The range map puts them in Arizona, but mostly north of Tucson and SE Arizona.  They favor the upper reaches of firs and spruces making them hard to spot.  They eat mainly insects present under conifer bark and in the tips and tufts of the needles. 

At the southern end of the park is Gordon's Pond, with excellent pathways and viewing platforms.  From the platform, shown below, we got a good look at the pond and the beach to the east. 

If you look across the pond to the beach, you will see two cement watch towers facing the Atlantic, close up below.  

These towers were built at the beginning of WW II, from 1939 to 1942 to spot Nazi warships, especially U-boats off the U.S coast.   A series of towers could phone in data on enemy positions to the massive gun emplacements along the coast, including Ft. Miles, and help direct shells to their targets.   Designed to last 20 years, the towers are still standing, and some are being restored.    Below is a photograph of the graphic the park has displayed on the trail.  For more on the towers, and historic preservation projects, see this link.

We saw a Peregrine Falcon with prey in Part 2.  Here we see a juvenile Peregrine in flight.    Note the long wings with long pointed primary feathers and long tail.  Peregrines average 25-34 mph in traveling flight, up to 69 mph in direct pursuit of prey.  They can dive from a height of over 1/2 mile, reaching maximal speeds of 200 mph.   The television program NOVA produced a recent episode on how Peregrines, once endangered by DDT, now thrive in Chicago, where they dive from skyscrapers for prey.  

We headed back to Cape May late in the day, as the sun was setting, and as a storm was rolling in from the west.  Again, we found birds accompanying us back to New Jersey. 

Brown Pelicans are another species almost eliminated by DDT.  They have made an excellent comeback, now living in coastal areas from the Pacific Northwest down to South America in the west, and New England down to the Caribbean in the east.  They cruise in squadrons above the surf, plunge-diving from high up, with a slight leftward twist to the neck to protect their esophagus and trachea which lay to the right.   They use the force of impact to stun fish before scooping them up in their pouch. 

This bird cruised next to us for some time, likely looking for a handout.  This is likely a non-breeding adult.  A juvenile would have a grayer bill. 

We expected rain to come in on Saturday night, and right on time, a front from the west began to move east as we left Delaware.  The panoramic view above shows the storm to the right, and below we can see the bottom of storm cells to the west and north.   

​We beat the storm to the harbor, the rain arriving just as we landed at Cape May

That's all for now.  Stay tuned for Part 4, a trip to Avalon Beach, just north of Cape May, and a rock'n roll boat trip to the Rips!

​Happy Trails! 

For Part 2, we are still in Cape May, New Jersey, this time catching the sunrise bird count at Higbee Beach, where there is a two story viewing platform and a raised berm between the beach and the inland understory.  After a midday visit to the annual Audubon Festival, we tour the salt marsh in the afternoon.

[Full disclosure:  We really toured the salt march on Thursday the 14th, and the morning watch on the 15th, but I have applied some "literary license" to keep a sunrise to sunset theme, and get the high points of the trip into 4 posts.] 

The rising sun caught this Sharp-shinned Hawk cruising overhead at 7:13 am.  For those of us from SE Arizona, the "Sharpie" is an unusual sighting, we see more Cooper's on the prowl.   However, at Cape May, Sharp-shinned Hawks are very common.     

The images above and below show some key characteristics of the Sharp-shinned that distinguish it from the Cooper's.  The Sharp-shinned has a squared off tail, clearly evident here, where the tail of the Cooper's is rounded.  Second, the Sharp-shinned will often fly with the leading edge of the wing at or in front of the head, a characteristic not seen during flight of the Cooper's Hawk.

This trip confirmed what every wildlife photographer knows, that the best images are captured in early morning or late afternoon light. The time window is narrow.  It does not take long for the sun to get high in the sky.  In addition, as every birder knows, activity is higher is the morning.  In our case, night time migrants are scrambling for land as the sun rises, and looking for breakfast. 

This Yellow-billed Cuckoo was sitting on as branch waaaay in the distance in the understory, but I was able to catch a few good images. Here is the best.  

Yellow-billed Cuckoo's are members of the family Cuculidae, the sole family in the order Cuculiformes.  Among the cuckoo species, residents of SE Arizona are most familiar with the Roadrunner.   The Yellow-billed Cuckoo breeds in the eastern U.S. and parts of Mexico and winters in South America.   My guess is that this bird is migrating south.   They have long slender tails with bold white spots, seen here, and are commonly perched in deciduous woodlands looking for caterpillars.  We were lucky to spot this bird perched in the morning light at 8:15 am. 

The Common Yellowthroat is one of our most abundant warblers, breeding throughout the U.S., living year round in the southeast U.S., and breeding in Mexico and Central America.  Cape May is right at the edge of their year round territory, so this bird could be migrating, or a local catching all the fuss of the Audubon Festival  and getting some breakfast to boot! 

Northern Flickers are large woodpeckers who spend most of their time on the ground eating ants and beetles.  In the west we see the red-shafted subspecies, and in the east, the yellow shafted as shown in the portrait above. 

It is hard to catch them in flight, but at 8:30 am I caught the bird below in flight, showing his feathers.  You will see flashes of yellow, the color of the feather shaft, and a white rump.   The red nape is characteristic of the male.

In this series of images we see a good example of intermittent flight an energy saving  strategy.  Small to medium sized birds will employ flap-bounding, consisting of active flapping to gain altitude followed by brief "bounds" when the wings are flexed against the body.

Mathematical models suggest that flap-bounding offers savings in energy expenditure during fast flight at maximum range speed or faster.  The wings when flexed will maintain some lift.     Flap-bounding becomes less efficient as the bird's body mass increases, hence we see it more commonly in small to medium sized birds.   The alternative strategy is Flap-gliding which is more efficient at slow to intermediate speeds. (Reference: Lovett and Fitzpatrick, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology Handbook of Bird Biology, Third Edition,  2016, pp. 161-162). 

This bird was in a hurry to get somewhere, and calling at the same time. 

The yellow feather shafts and white rump are quite evident in this series. 

The bird in the images that follow are likely a different Northern Flicker flying toward me, in the direction of the Delaware Bay, employing the Flap-bound strategy.  The "bound" looks like he is riding a boogie board in the air! 

In the first post of this series, we saw an Osprey do battle with a Bald Eagle over a fish.  The eagle got the fish, no big surprise.  Here we see another Osprey carrying a fish in typical head first position, likely a preference to reduce drag in flight. 

Ospreys are widespread throughout North America, breeding in the Pacific Northwest, sections of Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana as well as sections of the east coast.   Cape May is one of their prime breeding spots. They winter in the southern U.S. coastal areas, as well as coastal Mexico and Central America. 

They are unique among North American raptors for their diet of live fish and the ability to dive into the water as far as 3 feet deep to catch them. 

Swamp Sparrows breed in central and eastern Canada and winter in the U.S. south of the Middle Atlantic states and east of the Mississippi River.   They have a  year round presence in New Jersey, so our bird here could be a migrant or a local.  They live in bogs, swamps, marshes, and wet brushy meadows, making Cape May an ideal habitat.  

Note: most of the images above were captured from the top of the two story observation tower, which puts puts observers at the height of the upper understory, and provides a good view of the sky and horizon. ​

Our week in Cape May coincided with New Jersey Audubon's Cape May Fall Festival, October 14th-17th.  This year the festival was back in person after a hiatus in 2020 due to the pandemic.  We attended a talk on sparrow identification, and perused the exhibits, with the various vendors being back in force.   Next year the festival will be October 13-16, 2022.  More information will be available in summer of 2022.

The afternoon of Thursday October 14th we boarded The Skimmer, a pontoon boat operated by Salt Marsh Safari.  Along with a boatload of avid birders, we ventured out into the marshes just west of the shore of the Atlantic.  Great trip, with great bird ID and narration! 

December 14, 2021:  Correction.  I initially thought that I had images for two Black-crowned Night Herons, an adult and an immature.  However, Andy Jones, our guide and my major helper in ID for this post identifies the second bird as an immature Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, an unusual sighting in Cape May this late in the fall.  I have corrected the post, and again thank Andy for his help.

The Black-crowned Night-Heron, shown above, is in the order Pelecaniformes, wading birds that include the herons, egrets, ibises, spoonbills and pelicans.  They are in the family Ardeidae along with the other herons and egrets. They are stocky, especially compared to other herons, and are most active at night or dusk to forage in wetlands.  During the day they tend to perch, making good subjects for boat tours!

They live in fresh, salt, and brackish wetlands and breed in colonies.  They are widespread throughout North and South America, breeding in the U.S. and central Canada. They eat almost everything a wetland provides including leeches, earthworks, insects,  crayfish, clams, mussels, fish, lizards, snakes, turtles, rodents, birds and eggs.   They will also eat carrion and plant material.   This wide ranging diet helps to explain their extensive range.  Almost anywhere they go they find food. Rather than stabbing their prey as other herons do, they grab their prey in their strong bills. 

The birds shown above and below are adults.  This could be a male or female; they have similar appearances. 

The heron below is an immature Yellow-crowned Night Heron. It is distinguished from the immature Black-crowned by the dark bill, finer spots on the wings, and long thin legs.  This link from Cornell's All About Birds has a good side by side comparison to show the differences.   This bird likely was born in the marsh and should be heading south soon to winter in southern Florida or the West Indies. 

Cormorants are diverse and widespread family of shorebirds, known for their ability to dive for fish propelling themselves forward with powerful webbed feet and grabbing fish with a hooked bill.   Their feathers allow water to penetrate, likely due to a combination of the oil content and structural aspects of the feather.  A wet cormorant needs to dry out the feathers before it can fly. 

Here we see Double-crested Cormorants, characteristically brown-black, with a small patch of yellow-orange skin on the face.  Immatures have paler breasts.  In the second frame below we see how flexible their necks are, as a bird preens.  Note that birds have a uropygial gland at the base of the tail that produces oil used for preening,  likely the reason for this convoluted pose! 

We will see more cormorants in the air in Post 4. 

Here is a Royal Tern in non-breeding plumage, with a white forehead and a shock of black at the rear of the crest.  The legs are black, the bill is orange, and if you look very closely, you will see that this bird has been banded. 

The Great Blue Heron is a majestic bird with blue-gray plumage often seen in marshes or at the water's edge scanning for prey.  They wade slowly and purposefully, but strike quickly to stab prey with their long bill.   They live  throughout North America and Mexico, breeding further north into the central U.S. and Canada. 

In the image below we see a Great Blue in flight close to the marsh.   They pull their necks back into an s-shape in flight.  

The Ruddy Turnstone is a stocky Shorebird in the family Scolopacidae, along with other sandpipers.  They breed in the arctic tundra and winter in coastal North America including Mexico and Central America.  We see the non-breeding adult above.  The breeding adult is said to look like a calico cat.  For better views of breeding plumage  book your trip to the arctic now! 

Black-bellied Plovers are Shorebirds in family Charadriidae. When breeding in the arctic tundra they sport a black belly, but in their winter grounds,  coastal North and South America,  the belly is white.  Regardless of season they retain their black auxiliary feathers, the "armpits" that we see in the image below and in flight. 

Here is another bird that likes to stay out of sight in the reeds. Seaside Sparrows are large and dark, with yellow highlights, including the yellow patch in front of the eye, which we can just see above and below.  They breed in the coastal U.S. from Virginia to New England, and winter in marshes from the Carolinas to the Texas Coast. 

I have added a photo, below,  from our 2019 trip to the Texas coast.  It shows better detail, with the bird as always clinging to grasses.  For more, see Texas Coast Part V.

The Peregrine Falcon is in the family Falconidae, the sole family in the order Falconiformes, along with caracaras.   The Peregrine is considered the most widely distributed warm-blooded terrestrial vertebrate, living world wide throughout both hemispheres.  They are the largest falcon over most of this continent with long pointed wings and a long tail. They breed in open landscapes with cliffs or on skyscrapers.  They eat mostly birds, of an enormous variety, at least 450 North American Species, and an estimated 2,000 world wide.  

This Peregrine has caught a White-throated Sparrow, ID thanks to Andy Jones, one of our two guides on this trip who made the ID from this photograph.   Andy noted white patches in front of the sparrow's eye.  Also note that this falcon is banded. 

Another beautiful sunset at the end of a great day!  This was taken at Sunset Beach, facing toward Delaware.  As the sun gets low it is common to see the evening ferry to Delaware move right to left across the bay.  We will learn more about the ferry and see birds on the Delaware side of the bay in Post 3. 

Note the large chunk of cement on the horizon toward the middle of the frame.  This is what remains of a cement-hulled cargo ship, SS Atlantis,  initially built during WW I, but phased out due to weight.  The ship was bought for a planned ferry terminal but in 1926 as it was being towed to Cape May, it ran aground in a storm, and has been there ever since.  All that is left now is the deteriorating hull. 

Stay tuned for Post 3, Fort Miles, Delaware and Henlopen State Park.

​Happy trails!

​In mid-October my wife and I traveled to Cape May, New Jersey with Naturalist Journeys for a week of birding the fall migration.  Cape May is one of the undisputed birding hot spots in the U.S. and fall migration is a special time of year. 

​Cape May (red pin on map above) is at the very southern tip of New Jersey, a sharp point of land with the Atlantic Ocean to the East, and the Delaware Bay to the west.  In the fall Warblers fly down the east coast at night, and if they are at the cape at sunrise, they may find themselves over water, not an ideal location for a hungry bird after a long night in the air. So, they make a U-turn, and savvy birders can see flocks flying north, back to land and food.  A great opportunity for a fall migration bird count.

​Of course, there are other migrants at the cape in the fall, including raptors.  There is an active Hawk Watch each fall at Cape May Point State Park.

There is much to see in Cape May.  The next 4 posts will cover the highlights of the week, including the Cape May Bird Observatory, the Nature Conservancy South Cape Meadows, Cape May National Wildlife Refuge, Higbee Beach Wildlife Management Area dawn bird count, Cape May Point Hawk Watch, a day in Delaware at  Cape Henlopen State Park, a boat tour of the salt marsh, and a bit of rock and roll on board a boat at “the Rips,” rough seas where the Delaware Bay meets the Atlantic attracting fish, fishermen, and birds! 

​And, lots of good food in Cape May, and the annual Audubon Festival.

We stayed at the Seacrest Inn, which is right on Beach Avenue, at the south facing tip of Cape May.   Each morning, we walked across the street and stood on the beach, watching the sunrise to our left providing beautiful dawn colors for the shorebirds in flight or feeding at the waves' edge.  

The map below is from Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic CC (Lightroom) showing the location of our hotel, and where I was standing (orange squares) for the dawn shots in this post. 

Sanderlings are in the family of Sandpipers (Scolopacidae) the largest family in the order of Shorebirds (Charadriiformes).   They are medium sized "peep" Sandpipers  with pale non-breeding plumage and black legs and bill.  They breed all the way north in the arctic tundra, and migrate south for the winter to live and feed on the shorelines of both coasts of North America down through Central America. The ones spotted here in October may be staying for the winter, or may have stopped for food on their way further south. 

Although relatively nondescript on the ground, they are striking in the air, flying back and forth in large flocks above the waves  looking for food. 

The image above was captured just after 8 am on October 13th.  The birds are flying into the rising sun, to the left of the frame. 

The image below shows them in non-breeding plumage foraging for food in the sand as the waves recede.  They move quickly as a group back and forth following the line between the water and the sand.

The 30 second video below shows their characteristic hyperkinetic movement back and forth as the waves come in and then recede.  Sanderlings are great fun to watch, in the air or running on the sand. 

And yes, those are surfers in wetsuits at the end of the clip.

Ring-billed Gulls are Shorebirds in the same order as Sandpipers, but in the family Laridae, along with other gulls, terns and skimmers. They breed throughout the northern U.S. and Canada, living year round coast to coast in the southern U.S, into Mexico and the Caribbean.  They are comfortable with people, and can be seen in parking lots, garbage dumps, and fields, often in large numbers. Most nest near freshwater.  They have a black band encircling their orange bill.

The Ring-billed Gull's plumage evolves slowly over the first several years of life.  The bird in flight shown below is likely a juvenile. 

Ring-billed Gulls are omnivores, and can catch tidbits mid-air.  Their diet includes french fries, whether guarded or unguarded!  

​Long shadows of the morning birding crew at 8 am on the south facing beach.  Time to head for breakfast! 

Note the Cape May Lighthouse in the distance, almost straight west.  It is at the Cape May State Park, our next destination. ​

Cape May Point State Park sits just west of our hotel, on the beach, and includes the Cape May Lighthouse, the hawk watch platform, a large pond, lots of trails, and an old WW II bunker on the beach.  Between its location at the tip of Cape May, the hawk watch platform, the pond and generous understory with trails, it is a great place for birding.  

The Hawk Watch is an ongoing program that counts raptors on migration.  We visited twice during our week on Cape May, the morning of the 13th and afternoon of the 15th. The list for the 13th as of 11:30 am is shown below. 

Below is a map of the park and adjacent ponds again from Lightroom.

The 13th was a very gray day, and relatively light on raptors overhead.  However, the ones who showed up gave us a show!

It was a quiet morning for birds on the deck, until one of the spotters called out,  "Bald Eagle and Osprey!"   Sure enough, an Oprey had caught a sizable fish and was on his/her way home when a mature Bald Eagle decided to play pirate and raid the ship in flight.  Above, the Eagle on the right is bearing down on the Osprey.  As the Eagle gets closer, the Osprey takes a series of tight turns to try to shake off his opponent. 

This is a sizable fish.  Ospreys can lift fish up to their own weight, generally about 4 lbs. but overall prefer prey in the 1-2 lb. range.  For more on this see this post by Stefan Pociask.    Bald Eagles and Osprey are very old birds on the evolutionary scale, and here we are witnessing a battle that is literally millions of years old!  After millions of years, still not friends!  

This Bald Eagle is definitely larger than the Osprey, probably outweighing him/her by 4 to 6 lbs.  The Osprey is trying to outmaneuver the eagle, but with little success.

After another tight turn, the Eagle closes in again, and the Osprey lets go of the tail of the fish, accidentally or by intent.  The Osprey may have decided that this is too much effort to expend for one fish.  

The image above shows the fish held by one talon, and in the image below, the fish is in mid-air, up for grabs. The eagle did get the fish, but I did not capture that moment.  My memory card was full at the last frame shown here!  

Reminder: replace your camera's memory card when it is getting low, but before it is full, especially when shooting birds in flight.  

One of the big advantages of the park is the pond and understory in addition to the hawk watch platform.  We spotted this Mute Swan* on the Bunker Pond to the east of the platform.

The Mute Swan is in the family Anatidae, along with other geese and ducks.  They are not native to North America, rather they were imported from Europe from the mid 1800's to early 1900's to adorn large estates, city parks and zoos.   In time they formed breeding populations and now live in the Northeast, Midatlantic, Great Lakes, and Pacific Northwest.  They are aggressive toward native species and humans, and disturb the local ecosystem, often displacing local species. 

They are the elegant birds of Russian Ballets and European fairy tales, with their long S-shaped necks and wings held over their backs.  

This swan struck the typical story-book pose, and slowly rotated for the camera. 

*"Mute" because it is less vocal than other Swan species

Every evening we took the short drive west down Sunset Boulevard to, yes, Sunset Beach!  A great sunset, followed by a great dinner! 

Stay tuned, Part 2 coming down the pipe soon.

Happy Trails!