East Coast Refugee

I half-slept through Wednesday night into Thursday morning to my tent, sleeping bag, and pillows being soaked with rain. It was not raining at that point, so I packed up and head out to some of Cape May's finest.

There were about 20mph winds at 8am, and pretty cool at the Hawk Watch platform at the Point State Park. I picked up a MERLIN and saw several AMERICAN KESTRELS. While there, the hawk watcher let me know about a BUFF-BREASTED SANDPIPER, which was a bit out of range, at "The Meadows." I could see that the weather was getting worse, so I decided to go there right away.
When there, I came across the YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRD, which was still looking messy, but had wandered a bit from where he was originally reported. I spent about 20 minutes at the supposed BUFF-BREASTED SANDPIPER spot, with the wind messing me up so much I could not get good looks. Luckily, some better prepared birders with scopes came, and we were able to see him, as well as a WHITE-RUMPED SANDPIPER.


I decided to leave Cape May an head up to Stone Harbor and the Forsyth NWR, Brigantine Division. Despite the wind, and rain beginning, I was able to put together a pretty successful day. I got both BLACK-CROWNED and YELLOW-CROWNED NIGHT HERONS, as well as seeing the biggest conglomeration of GLOSSY IBIS I've ever witnessed. There was also a PEREGRINE FALCON cruising the field at Brigantine, making it a 3-falcon day!

As the weather deteriorated, I decided to head out of NJ, but got into a minor car accident in the process. I headed off an off-ramp a little to fast for the wet road and skidded into the curb and a sign. I drove away, with my alignment out of whack. I wasn't able to get work done on it that day, so I stayed in Philadelphia with Dave (The Donut Guy) Irwin. We had a blast hitting a bar above an Ethiopian Restaurant in West Philly.


Yesterday morning, the closest place that had the rim I needed for my car was in Easton, PA, so I drove the 90 minutes up here with a cluggy car. By the time all of the work on my car was done, it was about 4:30pm. Luckily, a couple people from the couchsurfing website, Genevieve and Mike, were willing to house me in Allentown last night. They were very welcoming and have the most friendly pets in America.

It's still raining now, but I'm planning to head to Hawk Mountain, PA this morning. I'm hoping this poor weather comes to a close soon, as I am ending the East Coast city part of this trip.