The Jersey shore attracts a lot of strange birds. Hundreds
of migratory species fly by every spring and fall, many making
extended
stopovers at avian hot spots along the coast. When they arrive,
they're sure to be
greeted by perhaps the strangest bird of all - the migratory birdwatcher.
Every season these devoted avian aficionados flock to Cape
May Point
and other bird-favored communities, armed with sunscreen
and binoculars, scanning the skies and beaches daily in hopes
of spotting their familiar
favorites and maybe a rare species or two. The excitement over
the recent spotting
of an off-course albatross along the Jersey shore still has the
native birders all atwitter.
In May, when hordes of hungry migrant shorebirds drop in for
the
annual horseshoe crab feast, of course, the refueling flyers line
the beaches
virtually wing to wing. But it wasn't until the late '70s, when
Peter Dunne of the
Cape May Bird Observatory began his stint as official migratory
bird counter,
that the public realized the astonishing numbers and varieties
of birds
who visit the Garden State every year.
In fact, scientific knowledge of birds has been hard to come
by.
Without the labor of thousands of mostly volunteer bird counters,
photographers, naturalists,
and bird banders, we might still believe, as even the great naturalist
Carolus Linnaeus did,
that certain species transmogrify into other species from winter
to spring. It's hardly
less fantastic than the reality. Migration is a truly amazing
feat
of navigational skill and inhuman stamina, and it's virtually
impossible
to study by observation alone. The astonishing transocean flights
of the swallow
seemed so impossible that some early observers believed these
birds
hibernated underwater or simply flew straight up into the heavens
to winter on the moon.
It's no mystery why birds in flight so fascinate us. Their
seemingly
effortless grace and beauty symbolize the spirit of freedom that
inspires poets and artists.
But migration is strenuous work, and many birds don't survive
their semiannual trips.
The Arctic tern flies the longest route known, from
New England to Europe and Africa, then south to Antarctica for
the winter. After
recouping their strength they retrace their route back to New
England in
the spring. Some species that fly a transocean route double their
weight before
taking off. On the nonstop flight they will burn off all the excess
calories.
Most of the shorebirds making the Delaware Bay stopover to take
in the
horseshoe crab fest are returning from South American breeding
grounds and on their way to the Canadian Arctic. They may
cram down an average of 12 eggs a minute, 14 hours a day
for 14 days, according to a 1994 report in Birder's World.
Not exactly the "blithe Spirit" of Shelley's ode, who
pours from
Heaven "thy full heart in profuse strains of unpremeditated
art." The art of real
avian spirits is darn hard work.
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