Cape May Diaries
19 - Cape May’s ordinary birds
Even before we became aware of the Cape May bird sanctuary, we encountered birds – collections of common and uncommon species that seem to fly over or hang out on both the East Cape May beach and the one in the more pristine, but eroding beach to the south.
Over the decade, we seemed to come upon a difference species each year, both in and out of the sanctuary itself, varieties of gulls crying at us for food as each attempted to ingest its body weight in nourishment. Clusters of sandpipers filled in the spaces left vacant by the gulls, each group seeming to co-exist in ways humanity could not. Unless we came too near to the gulls, each group ignored us, more intently interested in the doings of other gulls -- which had acquired a meal -- from which the food might be stolen. At times -- as if waiting for a change of tide or rise of wind -- masses of gulls squatted in the drier sand or stood on one foot, eyeing us as we passed or closing their inner line to gain needed rest between their bouts of survival. When walkers along the beach did broach the safety zone these gulls established, the gulls fluttered up -- sometimes only a few, sometimes as a whole regiment, circling over the invaders' heads to land at some safer more distant location.
The sandpipers had another philosophy. They panicked at every approach. Their small legs pumped madly to make their escape -- a mass of them exploding from any particular spot a human shadow crossed. Scores of these paltry birds fled ahead of us, their tiny legs pumping like small pistons -- each body reflected in the shimmering wet sand. When caught between two human advances at once, the diminutive beasts took to flight, swarming away in a formation as tightly drawn at the military stunt flyers, The Blue Angels -- this air show, however, displaying the complicated patterns of -- not six planes -- but scores of birds. How these creatures kept space between their wing tips without a disastrous crash remains a mystery to me.
On the ground or in the air, the sandpipers responded vocally to their being disturbed with a series of beeping. This became the reason why we nicknamed them "peepers."
Unlike the gulls -- who maintain a constant presence on the beach regardless of the temperature or level of precipitation, the sandpipers seemed to appear only when the temperature rose above 60 degrees -- with more appearing as the temperature rose -- full congregations gathering to worship the sun during bright warm days.
The gulls and sandpipers seemed to share the beach, each content with their fair share of the aquatic treasures scooped out of the continuous flow of water, gulls gathering the larger items, the peepers digging at the tiny specimens burrowing into the sand with the retreat of each wave.
We often spotted wounded gulls and other birds -- whose species we did not recognize -- and from time to time came upon sandpipers with one or even two missing legs.
After seeing that first wounded peeper, we kept our eyes peeled for more such birds in the various populations we encountered on the beach. Over time, we encountered many, and found these did not do well even in such a protected place as Cape May. Crippled birds struggled to catch enough to eat, and were often victimized by two-legged birds when they did -- most of the food stolen before being ingested. Thus to loose a leg or hurt a wing in this society amounted to a death sentence.
From about our third or fourth year traveling to Cape May, we came upon yet another species of bird we came to call "the skimmer." This was an odd cross between a seat cut and a pelican with a body like a sea gull and a large reddish-orange bill like the pelican. Because of a wedge of black across either side of the bird's face, the beast seemed to have no eyes. But its sharp black and white coloring gave it the sleek appearance of a Lear jet, especially when in flight -- when its wings were fully extended, black on top, white on bottom.
In flight, the flocks seemed an exaggeration of barn wallows with the same slanted and pointed wings. Indeed, they managed to perform the same intricate aerial ballet despite their much bulkier size -- and perform in a way swallows could not manage, moving not as individual entities, but as an entire flock.
Whatever their social organization was, we could make little sense of it, except vial several general observations. Unlike seagulls, these birds stuck together even more studiously than sand pipers did. Whereas the sandpipers would abandon their enclave to pursue food, often getting separated from their friends, these creatures camped out on the sand like an invading army, any disturbance send them to the air as a unit. The entire flock did not rise up when someone approached, unless the child, adult or dog headed straight into the middle of the encampment -- but rather groups of birds united by some bond invisible to us, fluttered up and re-landed elsewhere.
Once tourists discovered these antics, their kids often made a habit of upsetting the flock, little brats under the unwise management of their parents rushing into the middle of the settled legion to watch the flocks flee. It was an irresistible urge. The mass of fleeing birds posed a magnificent sight, swelling like black flames, filling the sky with black feathers, landing again like an image from a war movie. Each experience left us breathless for that moment, and amazed at how quickly the scene calmed again as if no panic had occurred. We, of course, feared for the birds each time one of the tourists' children made a lunge for the flock, realizing that -- despite their discipline and their organization -- the birds hearts pounded with fear and what parents thought of as innocent fun was terror to the flock. Eventually, some of those hearts would give out, and their flight ended by sheer exhaustion. But as with most things in nature, people saw the world as one vast theme park, here for their personal pleasure.
No policeman would pull them over for their mistreatment of birds. No more than any human would ever suffer the death penalty for mass murder of whales or dolphins -- no matter how more intelligent the animals seemed than the humans who abused them.