Cape May Diaries
27- Sanctuary
Although we had heard Cape May was famous for its birds as well as its Victorian Houses, we didn't actually locate the wild life management area until our second year -- and then only by accident.
Up north, birder friends described a part of the area where they could stand and study migrating populations of birds and that several unique species could be found in this section. The guide book we read said the site was located at Cape May point and that hundreds if not thousands of birders flocked to the place at various seasons to observe hundreds and even thousands of birds taking refuge here during their long flight up or down the Atlantic fly way.
The whole area was supposed to contain 600 acres of holly and scrub oak forest with sand dunes, beach grass, meadows and ponds -- and that a public portion of this area existed somewhere south of the developed part of historic Cape May. We were also told that this was a prime place to catch a glimpse of swans, bald eagles and peregrine falcons -- and that fall was one of the better times for us to visit. We later learned, of course, that two wild life areas existed, one in Cape May Park and the larger in Higbee Beach. Yet for the life of us, we could find neither, despite their considerable size.
When we finally did stumble upon the site at Cape May point, we neither knew where we were or what we had discovered. Indeed, we might have found the place sooner had we driven to Sunset Beach along Sunset Beach Boulevard instead of hard-headedly insisting we walk along the beach to access that part of Cape May.
While on the beach one day, we happened to notice a path through one of the dunes, a twisting gap with slightly darker sand surrounded by walls of sea grass. Out of curiosity, we made our way to it, just to catch a glimpse of what might be on the other side. We suspected to find a landscape of rising dunes topped with golden rod and other gnarled beachfront growth. We came instead of a vast wetland depression as remarkable and similar to the wetlands we had encountered along side the parkway on our way south from Atlantic City, but with a dirt path cutting through its center and a sense of extreme quiet broken only by the chatter of birds.
The space we saw had as large an interior of Giant Stadium with ponds, flowers, and stretches of tangled bushes. At several points the path sank so low as to become muddy patches over which someone had constructed low wooded ramps. During that first visit we made our way across and back by the same path, but saw first signs of other humans when their heads popped up some distance from us along what we presumed was another path. We later learned that our path simply circled around like a race course.
This open area made up the wetlands portion of the wildlife area, a large bowl tucked between a bank of sand dunes on the ocean side and Sunset Boulevard on the other. A small dirt parking lot allowed us later to reach this by car, saving us the long hike along the beach from Beach Drive.
Between the two dirt paths was an unevenly shaped waterway, by the name of Lily Lake -- which by luck and geography had managed to remain fresh water -- explaining the raids on it from those blockading the New Jersey coast at various points in history. Yet several studies suggesting that storms and erosion were slowly allowing sea salt to infect freshwater, spelling the lake's doom despite efforts to preserve it. Lily Lake for us proved a special treasure, one that varied during our yearly visits, revealing clutches of swans or eagles and falcons.
We knew nothing of the lake’s make up or the magic the place would hold for us in the future during that first visit. We merely meandered through what we thought was a freak of nature, a tiny odd island of vegetation stuck in the middle of a sea side geography. We did not know that this was one of the few vestiges of primitive seaside before humanity's intrusion, that the entire coast from Cape May to Jersey City had largely resembled this before Henry Hudson came. E.B. White, in a column for the New Yorker, described watching human kind devastate the Florida coast through bulldozers and development -- a mass destruction performed in less than a decade. New Jersey had taken several generations to perform the feat.
When we thought we had seen all there was to see, we discovered the upland section, a series of paths wandering through a variety of trees along which bird blinds and observatories had been constructed, where groups of birders studied the migrating species that stopped over on their way north or south.
In subsequent years, we investigated the Cape May Point preservation area carefully. Wiser to our misdeed, we consulted a map and learned we could access the upland portions by driving to the light house parking lot – although we had discovered this area by accident as well, wandering out from the wetland area to the beach only to spot yet one more path further south from the southern path through the Lily Lake area. Inspired by our previous discoveries, we followed it and found ourselves in the middle of woods that would have make Hobbits and Elves happy.
Almost immediately, we also discovered a new danger. Patches of the most evil weed I ever encountered lay to either side of the entrance. This evil weed was not marijuana but poison ivy, threatening to ruin our vacation since the mere breath of it made me breakout everywhere, and a touch, forced me to bath in calamine lotion for months. Remarkably, no such disaster struck and we passed in and out of that marvelous woodland unscathed.