Cape May Sunsets

A cape is a pointed piece of land jutting out into a body of water.  Therefore, you have opportunities for both sunrise and sunset on the water.  Sunset Beach is on the western side of the cape and is a wonderful place to enjoy the sunset.  There are some lovely benches set up on the beach as well as the Sunset Beach Gift store and The Grille.

Also at Sunset Beach is an interesting shipwreck.  During World War I, about a dozen ships were constructed out of concrete because steel was scarce. One of these ships, the S.S. Atlantus, was docked at Cape May after the war. A 1926 storm ran her aground at Sunset Beach.  What is left of her hulk rests out in the water. 

As I was waiting for sunset, I chatted with folks sitting on the benches with me.  One of them introduced me to Cape May "diamonds."  She even gathered some for me from the beach while I was photographing the sunset. I realized after the fact that I had captured some of these "diamonds" during my sunrise shoot.  These "diamonds" catch the light of the rising or setting sun and when they are wet, they glow.  The reality is they are water polished quartz about the size of pearls.  You can buy polished ones at the gift store at Sunset Beach, but I treasure my gifts from a generous stranger.

 

I shot different angles and exposures trying to capture the setting sun and the waves whipped up by the wind that day. I suspect other days have much smaller waves hitting the beach, but I had a beautiful, tranquil sunset to capture with my camera and to enjoy.

Cape May - Raptor Banding Demonstration

Certain days of the week there is a raptor banding demonstration near the Hawk Watch at Cape May.  I found it most interesting. Since they started banding hawks, they've banded over 132,000 and gotten data back from over 2000. One of the more interesting stories was of a chick that was banded in the nest Greenland and captured at Cape May a mere three weeks later! Amazing!

Most of the time, the birds are captured, banded and immediately released. For the demonstration, the raptors are put in these tubes because it calms them down.  They are only kept in these tubes a very short time, long enough for the visitors to see these amazing creatures up close and to learn about them in a way that would not be possible otherwise. The birds are released unharmed to continue on their journey south.

In order to capture the raptors to band them, you must set a trap using bait birds. The bait birds used are pigeons, starlings, and house sparrows. However, it is amazing how these bait birds are treated. They have flack jackets tailored for each size bird. The pigeon's protective gear is made from Lexus leather car seats.

The sparrow's is made from leather jackets. The sparrow one was so tiny and actually cute.

 We got to see  sharp shinned hawks,

a Cooper's hawks,

and a peregrin falcon. 

He showed us how their feet are specially made to capture their prey and how their heads don't move during flight so they can find their prey easier.

The crowd was fascinated, as was I.  I hadn't brought my big camera, but I couldn't help myself - I pulled out my iPhone and was shooting snapshots for memories.

Cape May - Sea Bird Watch

The Cape May Bird Observatory counts many different kinds of birds during the fall migration. Up at Avalon along the seawall, they have a sea bird count. They have a presentation at 2:00 where they show you how they identify these birds from such a great distance.  

This is Atlantic City in the background. This image was taken with my 300-800mm at 800 mm.  That bird in the center is a northern gannet.   I've left this as shot so you can see what the bird counters are seeing.  Yes, they identify these birds when they are just specs.  It is amazing!

I've cropped down so you can see it better.  To identify northern gannets here you look for large white birds with these black tips on their wings.  The body shape is much more elongated and sharp both the body and the wings than a white pelican would be.  The smaller dots are greater black-winged gulls (which are the largest gull), so you can get an idea of how large these gannets are.

 Double crested cormorants fly by in large flocks.  They are identified by the patterns the flocks make. While they sometimes do get into a V shape, they never maintain it.  They are always rearranging the pattern and snaking out.

Here is a closer look as they flew overhead - note the elongated head and still a different pattern in the sky.

I did crop this one down so you could see the three birds in the distance - they were surf scoters. You really need a scope to make the id between white winged scoters, black scoters and surf scoters.  The sea bird counter has a high powered scope to see more detail on the wings and face to make a good id for the count.  They have a different counter for each bird that they click as they see them.

This young gull was hanging out,  not bothered by the birders nearby. 

I spent about an hour two different days at the Sea Bird Watch and saw:

Double crested cormorant
Black duck
Sanderling
Black bellied plover
Ring bill gull
Great black-backed bull
Black scoter
Surf scoter
Herring Gull
Northern Gannet
Greater Scaup
Brown pelican

Earthquakes in the News

In my morning reading, I found this story: Small Earthquake rattles New Jersey. A 3.0 earthquake hit New Jersey last night. It takes at least a 2.5 or 3.0 earthquake to be felt. Apparently in addition to the seismological evidence, there was a flood of calls to 911 after the quake. Interestingly, the 911 callers heard what sounded like an explosion as well as feeling the movement.

To me this story is interesting, because we expect earthquakes on the west coast. We don't expect earthquakes as much on the east coast.

On the sidebar for this story was a video about an earthquake near Seattle. A quick google search yielded this story from the Fox News No reports of damage from 4.5 Magnitude Seattle Earthquake and from the USGS: Magnitude 4.5 Seattle-Tacoma Area that occurred last week.

I'm guessing that I'm just noticing these more since I started paying more attention to earthquakes after the swarms of quakes around Yellowstone. Yikes: I checked the home page at the USGS - and there was a 3.0 earthquake in Oklahoma last night! Three miles southeast of Centrahoma, Oklahoma. Apparently there is a Centrahoma aniticline in the Arkansas valley geosyncline. From Wikepedia: In structural geology, an anticline is a fold that is convex up and has its oldest beds at its core. Also from Wikepedia: Geosyncline is a term still occasionally used for a subsiding linear trough that was caused by the accumulation of sedimentary rock strata deposited in a basin and subsequently compressed, deformed, and uplifted into a mountain range, with attendant volcanism and plutonism.Wikepedia

In surfing for more information as to whether this quake was associated with either the Ouachita Mountains or the Arbuckle mountains, I found that there was a 2.7 quake near Oklahoma City in early December.

Looking at this weeks' USGS Latest Earthquakes - Last 7 days there has been a lot of activity along the west coast, Alaska, and even a very small one west of Carlsbad, New Mexico. SInce I have not been monitoring quake activity, I suspect this is all within the normal activity. I am certainly finding it interesting.