Movin' Right Along: Birds and More Birds

Tuesday, April 27th, 2021

This year, we decided to do a “maiden voyage” for the year in the spring, over my birthday week. Joe spent weeks prepping and cleaning the RV, and yesterday we spent most of the day loading it up for a trip of about 9 days. Ironic that it took so long, considering the brief trip and the fact that we are not going very far all in all. Our first stop for the night was only about 70 miles away, at Bass River State Forest in south Jersey.

We finally left home at about 2pm. Our route took us into the Pinelands, where we’ve almost never been in the past. It’s very rural and not a bit like central Jersey--even the rural parts there are greener pastures, rather than scrubby pine trees in sandy hard ground. We found the park with no problem, and got ourselves set up despite the insane New Jersey-ness of the park’s set-up. There was no one to check us in, and the roads are not very well thought out. We had trouble making a left turn for lack of sufficient room. Then we wanted to stop at the dump site--but it was angled to be approached only by those leaving the campground. So again, I had to make a difficult turn (by this time, we’d unhooked the Jeep). Then the water at the dump was closed, and the instructions said to use the supposedly potable water nearby. That struck us as both extremely unsanitary and bordering on illegal, since dump sites must have water available. And once we had dumped, the only legal way to leave the dump site was to turn right--which would put us back on the main road OUT of the park, with no way to get back in easily other than traveling somewhere and turning around and coming back to the park. So I decided we were already in an illegal mess, and i turned left, ignoring the “Right only” arrow, cut quickly across the divide nearby, and got myself back on the right side of the street. It was all ridiculous--this is how New Jersey deals with campers!

Purple Martin Nests

Red Wing Blackbird

After that, though, we were fine. The campground was virtually empty-- didn’t see ANYONE near us. Most of the sites were closed for the season, which explains why I had so few choices to reserve a spot. But we were all alone, and spent a very quiet evening, with sandwiches for dinner and going to bed very early. We were both tired from a busy family weekend and then all the shlepping during the morning.

We started today by taking a walk through the campground. We saw exactly two other campsites being used, and they were nowhere near us. The area is piney, and we are next to a pretty lake. I think there is swimming and canoe/kayak rentals during the summer, but everything is still shut down for the off-season. After our walk, we packed ourselves up for a day excursion, and headed to the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. It is located among the estuaries between Atlantic City and the “mainland,” and on the way there, we passed many boatyards and lots of beautiful watery scenery. It only took about 20 minutes or so to drive there.

Ibis

Egret

Once we arrived, we walked around the vicinity of the Information building, but of course everything is still closed because of Covid. One thing that was striking was the cluster of birdhouses outside the building, put up for Purple Martins. We realized we lucked out coming in late April to this place, because it is nesting season. The birdhouses all had Purple Martins in and on them--we could see them go in and out, or just sit on the perches of the houses. They are interesting looking birds and although I’ve seen houses set up for them in many places, I’ve never happened to see the birds nesting. The do have a purplish sheen to their feathers, and a yellowish belly, and fly a lot like a swallow. Of course, that’s when I started taking pictures. I was VERY happy to have brought my “real” camera with the excellent zoom lens, and made good use of it today.


Egret

We walked a few more trails near the information building area, one with Cassie, and a couple without her, including a boardwalk along the edge of the forest where the estuaries begin. The views across the area are lovely, and there were very few people there. So it was always quiet wherever we were, and extremely relaxing just to lean on the rails and look at the water and the birds. On the forest trail, we saw a red-winged blackbird and a vireo, both of which we identified by their songs (we have an app on our phones to identify those, and as I said, it was quiet and there was not a lot of other noise besides the wind and the birdsong.)

Osprey stretching out

By this time, it was about 1pm, and we had to get something to eat. There was nothing in the park, and we had not brought sandwiches with us. So we drove out of the Refuge about a half mile to a local bagel restaurant, bought sandwiches there, and ate outside at a table. Then we went back to the Refuge and drove along the 8-mile drive through the estuaries. We crawled along at 15 miles per hour or even less, stopping frequently to look more closely at the egrets, pipers, and swans (and for me to take photos.) We were also stopping at every osprey nest-- every nest had an adult either sitting on the edge, or sitting right in the middle, we assume on eggs. We saw several of them take off or land on their nests, and I finally was able to catch one of them with wings spread. They are large birds.


Osprey

Osprey sitting on her next

It probably took an hour or so to do the whole 8 miles, and toward the end we walked on a trail (with Cassie) which was a mile long through the woods. It was pretty, but we didn’t see any birds this time until the very end, when we heard and then saw a stunning bright yellow goldfinch. We got back in the car and drove to the end of the road, which took us outside the gate to the Refuge.

From there we headed home, but made a “quick” stop at a huge antique store, the size of a warehouse. I say “quick” because although I’d noticed it on the way past earlier, we almost missed it this time, and we went in the “do not enter” exit (we got used to that yesterday getting into Bass River Forest campground.) Joe was such a good sport; he waited (and napped) in the car while i walked through the entire building, stopping only to check the Roseville (prices and availability). Even so, it was probably a good 30 minutes that I was in there.

After that, we headed for home again, looking for an ice cream place we had noticed in the morning. Unfortunately when we stopped there, they had no sugar-free ice cream for Joe, so that was disappointing. We came back to the RV and discovered that tonight, we do have neighbors-- two more people set up next to us. It’s quiet tonight, though-- we were probably the noisy ones, because we ran our generator for a while when we got back. But now we are all tucked in. Joe grilled chicken for dinner outside, we had some salads from home to go with it, and after I get this blog uploaded, it’s time to go to bed! Tomorrow we are moving on, via ferry, to Delaware.