July 1st
A quiet start to the month as it was a work day, but a lunch time walk around one of my favourite ponds turned up a nice surprise for me in the shape of a Four-spotted Pennant. This is a dragonfly that I wasn't expecting to see as I hadn't heard it mentioned by any of the local wildlife folk, but it occurs regularly in small numbers here, where it is at the very northern limit of its range. In New Jersey, the species has only been recorded from Cape May and Cumberland county and is very local here, but it occurs with some regularity at ponds down here near Cape May Point and I found several pairs in tandem with the females egg-laying.
Male Four-spotted Pennant - a well-named species!
July 4th
As I'm now living in the USA, I of course have to mention Independence Day! Actually, it was a great day for many of us down here for another reason as our good friend Scott recently reached his 40th birthday so a great crowd of us gathered today for one of Scott's 'Specials'. He's an amazing cook (always great people to know!) and he turned out an amazing spit roast, roasting a whole suckling pig and serving up on Michael and Louise's porch - what a day!
July 5th
The sun beat down on my head from an almost cloudless sky; I wanted shade, but I knew that if I moved, I would be spotted and the dramas playing out before me would come to a sudden end. From my lofty position, a group of hunters had gathered and were lying in wait beneath me. Their prey needed to get into the area to feed, but each time one tried, a predator would break ranks and dart for it. If they were too slow, they would soon be eaten; a short distance in front of me another drama was playing out. A single large predator had cornered a number of its prey and had them penned in; periodically it made sudden, startlingly dramatic lunges to take out one of its victims. Finally, to my right another lone predator, this time a prowler, stalking very slowly, at times motionless, at other times creeping forward inch by inch, ever in search of its prey which it was trying to ambush from within dense vegetation.
So where was I? The Serengeti? The Maasai Mara? Nope - this was lunch time on one of the little metal bridges at The Nature Conservancy's Migratory Bird Refuge off Sunset Boulevard. The first scenario wasn't a line of crocodiles waiting for wildebeast to cross the river, it was a line of Green Sunfish, waiting for any opportunity to grab the pairs of Common Bluet damselflies that were trying to lay eggs in the area. The second scenario saw a single large fish, the water just too murky to determine exactly what it was, hunting minnows in the shallows; finally, the third scenario involved all the stealth and guile of a Northern Water Snake as it patrolled for sticklebacks amongst submerged waterweed.
The hunters become the hunted. Tandem pairs of Familiar Bluets have to run the gauntlet of the local fish population if they want to ensure that their species survives. More often than not, it is the damsels that are doing the hunting.
A Northern Water Snake pauses for air during its underwater sorties. Water snakes can often be seen hunting fish and can hold their breath for several minutes at a time.
Sometimes - especially when it's hot - it's good to just sit and watch from a suitable vantage point and it's amazing what you can see. The various hunting strategies taking place at a single small bridge in Cape May just shows how nature has found a way to fill every niche, to take advantage of every opportunity. You don't have to go to Africa to see nature red in tooth and claw - and you don't have to be David Attenborough to witness it first hand!
July 6th
Things are starting to happen back at the point it seems; after a lengthy period with no rain, many of the pools are now low in water and the muddy edges are rich in juicy benthic invertebrates (that's all the little things that live in ooze!). I stopped in at Bunker Pond before work and managed to get there in time to see two Gull-billed Terns that Scott had reported.
This pair of Gull-billed Terns breezed in and out of Bunker Pond a number of times but seldom stayed for long and were easily missed if you didn't just happen to be close by.
A nice array of shorebirds was there too and the season's first returning Short-billed Dowitchers were busy seeking out a breakfast of tasty water creatures, plying through the water with a methodical sewing machine action with their bills. Meanwhile, two Greater Yellowlegs were more actively seeking small fish in the shallows.
Short-billed Dowitchers winging in to Bunker Pond
July 8th
Well who would have thunk! After going the whole spring period listening to the near-deafening chorus of Spring Peepers without ever get even the briefest glimpse of one, Megan chanced upon one which had been attracted to our back door light after dark in search of an insect meal. Clearly it never pays to give up!
A Spring Peeper at our back door - who would have thought that a frog so small could make such an almighty din!
Another view of the Spring Peeper, showing the hallmark dark X on the back
July 9th
Today's highlight was certainly most unexpected as I spent most of the day at home while the builders got stuck into putting the walls in for our new bathroom. In the afternoon, I needed to run out to the shops for a few things, so took the opportunity to walk around a nice area of rough scrub and wetland which is right next to the shops - always handy! Dragonflies abounded and Seaside Dragonlets were super abundant, giving me the opportunity to photograph a number of females in their various colour forms. But the unexpected treat here was a nice White-lined Sphinx (hawkmoth to us Brits) which was quite approachable and probably only recently emerged.
White-lined Sphinx - a nice reward for me for doing the shopping!
July 10th
For the first time in months, we had a proper drop of rain today to alleviate the sweltering heat that was building up. It rained for most of the afternoon and at least meant I could skip watering can duties for a day! Somewhat annoyingly though, we had a barbecue to go to in the evening but, ever resourceful, our friend and host Shawn made good use of his spacious double garage and barbecued in the dry! Luckily it brightened in the evening and we took a turn around the garden for some wildlife viewing. The day had started really well too, as a Green Heron flew over our back garden and a number of other birds showed up around the house including a Ruby-throated Hummingbird, a party of five Orchard Orioles which were most likely a local family group, plus a pair of Blue Grosbeaks which searched avidly through the copious amount of Wild Carrot flowering in our meadow at present. What was interesting is that two juvenile Brown-headed Cowbirds accompanied the grosbeaks and almost certainly these two were raised by the grosbeaks, as cowbirds are brood parasites like Common Cuckoos, laying their eggs in other birds nests and leaving the hosts to do the parenting. It was certainly noticeable that the young cowbirds not only stuck closely to the pair of Blue Grosbeaks, but also seemed to mirror exactly their foraging and feeding behaviour.
July 11th
A quiet day at work, but in the evening after dark, I thought I heard something rummaging around outside. Grabbing the torch I crept round the side of the garage and there was the masked bandit who had been pinching our juicy white mulberries! A Raccoon was caught in the act, though he thought that if he hid his eyes behind a leaf we wouldn't be able to see him!
Ronnie Raccoon goes large - I wouldn't mind if he just asked first!!
July 12th
Today was a day that would clearly demonstrate that nature is finely-tuned, seemingly always on a knife-edge and easily tipped over the edge (that's probably enough metaphors for now I think!). We had noticed a steadily-increasing gathering of Laughing Gulls over Lake Lily in front of the store during the afternoon of the 11th but didn't think anything of it. A couple of locals stopped in to say they had never seen such a gathering over the lake before and what did it mean. I had been saying that they were probably responding to a ready food supply - perhaps an insect hatch of some sort, but this morning the truth was clear. I got out of my car to be hit by a whiffy, fishy stench and a glance at the lake revealed water-lily pads where there had not been any the day before. A closer look showed these lily pads to actually be fish, floating side up at the surface and all dead. Hundreds of fish and no clear reason why.
Dead and dying fish clutter the surface of Lake Lily
We called New Jersey DEP to get them to take samples for testing; meanwhile, the local community organised a clean up and did a very thorough job over the following 36 hours. Oxygen starvation was considered the most likely cause and this was confirmed a few weeks later, though with added complications. Initially it was thought that the long run of hot weather probably caused this (though we doubted this was the whole story as it had been cooler for a couple of days prior to this happening) and it was probably complicit. But the experts considered that the confirmed oxygen shortage was more likely due to an increase in other gases in the water as a result of a mass die-off of submerged vegetation which had been treated with an aquatic herbicide; in addition, the recent rains may well have washed potentially harmful chemicals off nearby properties (house-proud locals here are far more prone to dumping poisons on their lawns than us Brits) which probably also compounded the issue. All in all, an unfortunate combination of three unrelated incidents, any one of which, in isolation, probably wouldn't have been a problem, but together proved just too much for the ecosystem - which now of course needs time to recover.
Bluegill - a common fish around Cape May in still, freshwater
Largemouth Bass are native further west in North America but have been widely introduced for fishing purposes throughout the continent. This and the Bluegill constituted the vast majority of dead fish at Lake Lily.
July 14th
The changeable weather continues, with more rain today, but such conditions get the migrants moving and shorebirds continue to headline the bird show that is taking place daily at Bunker Pond as water levels remain low - though creeping back up a little at present. At lunch time, the Migratory Bird Refuge had a marked increase in Least Sandpipers with at least 30 scurrying around on the dry mud. A Spotted Sandpiper and a few Short-billed Dowitchers were in the wetter east side and a Whimbrel flew overhead, calling. Herons are starting to move now too and I totted up three Green and five Great Blue Herons durng the course of the day.
Shot against the light so a bit grainy after I tweeked the picture a little, but at least you can see that it's a Whimbrel - though the classic lack of a white rump which distinguishes this form from European Whimbrels is sadly not visible here.
July 15th
Songbirds are showing evidence of movement now, with three Yellow Warblers feeding in our rose patch today and two Brown Thrashers also appeared which I don't think were local to us as I haven't seen any for some time.
July 17th
Tony and I put our exploring shoes on today and headed north into the great outdoors. We took a tip-off and went to see a small cluster of Crested Fringed Orchids not far from the county airport and also chanced across a nice population of Red-banded Hairstreaks feeding on the sweet-smelling pepperbush flowers. This proved to be a really nice spot which we returned to a couple more times later in the summer.
Crested Fringed Orchid - a gem that is fast disappearing from Cape May and may well soon disappear for good from the county.
An awful picture, taken in a dark forest! This female Mocha Emerald constitutes the third record for Cape May county of this species - my mate Tony beat me to it with two earlier this year! Note the peg-like ovipositor near the end of the abdomen and the brownish cast to the wings.
Surely a garden escape?! But no, American Turk's-cap Lily is native here and grows here and there in sunny glades.
Another Turk's-cap shot. Sadly the flowers are short-lived and it was pure chance that we timed the discovery of this colony just right.
Later we headed into the north of the county and explored some fabulous sphagnum bogs. Sadly this habitat will soon be lost in Cape May county it seems as no habitat management is currently carried out. The sphagnum bogs mostly occur in old commercial cranberry bogs but now that harvesting has stopped, the areas are not managed and scrub encroachment is rapidly threatening them all. An all too familiar story...
Sphagnum bog in Cape May County - a naturalists heaven!!
Dion Skipper feeding at Carolina Redroot - both classic acid bog species. Note the skippers long, black tongue reaching into the tubular flowers for nectar.
I know that Elfin Skimmer has featured just recently but they're just too great to resist!
I did manage to photograph a female Elfin Skimmer this time - all 0.8 inches of it!
One of the very special plants of the acid bogs here is Golden Crest, a widespread but localised member of the Lily family. We found some quite large stands of plants that had finished flowering, but the silky white stems and heads of fruiting bodies looked great when viewed against the light.
Miraculously, we found just one plant of Golden Crest with a single flower still out!
Pause for reflection... American White Water-lily
Bugging Out
Just to finish off, here's a collection of buggy pictures to enjoy - some are good reasons to go out to the woods, some are good reasons to stay at home and bolt the door!
Numbers of Spicebush Swallowtails are now really starting to increase and will peak in August. This is one of the commonest butterfly species in Cape May and can be seen throughout the county during the summer months.
Ah, they're just great! Dragonflies simply swarm through Cape May during the summer giving some great photographic opportunities. This female Needham's Skimmer posed beautifully for me against a rich green backdrop that set her off fabulously.
OK, back indoors, quick!! Common Grass Spiders are very common around Cape May and make obvious webs, often out in the open on lawns (hence the English name). They are related to the funnel-web spiders and make a similar web, with a flat sheet radiating out from a tunnel of silk within which they hide and wait for struggling prey to set off the trigger lines. This is one of the biggest spider species in Cape May - but harmless, honest!
Talking of swarming.... If you look carefully you can see at least seven mosquitoes hard at work on this poor little chap! You can also tell from the size of the mozzies on his head that this is a real baby Box Tortoise with a lot of growing to do.
Another summer swarmer - Lone Star Tick. Once you get your eye in, you can spot ticks waiting on the grass stems to latch onto any passing moving object. Notice how the front legs are posed to grab on. Ticks are certainly a good reason to avoid the woods in summer, but they can be avoided if you're careful.
Revenge can be sweet - if a little harsh at times perhaps! We were getting particularly pestered by Deer Flies one day and Tony managed to swat one; we offered it up to some predatory Water Striders in a trackside puddle and this one jumped on it with glee! Note the sucking, needle-like proboscis of the Water Strider. I'm also always amazed at the gaudy patterns of the eyes of these biting flies.
Another lethal predator who's on our side! There are dozens of robber fly species to sort our here, many very difficult or impossible to identify in the field. This hairy-faced chap (or chapess) is Promachus rufipes. Robber flies are voracious predators of other insect species and are very common throughout the summer here.
Let's finish on a high note! A great way to interact with butterflies - like this Dun Skipper - is to offer them some mineral salts to enjoy. I licked the tip of a finger and offered it to this skipper and he was over the moon!
