Canada & The USA

As a post-PhD break, I have just spent a month travelling over land around Canada and the north-east USA. It was an incredible trip, where I got to see a wide-range of cultures in different cities and towns, as well as some top quality birds. Due to the nature of the trip, I was unable to take my camera for wildlife photography, but it was still great to get out into natural spaces and explore the local wildlife!

The real highlight for me was my final week at Cape May, in the southern tip of New Jersey. Cape May is famed for its birding, particularly during the spring and autumn when huge numbers of migratory species are seen. The narrow peninsula acts a bit like a funnel to the migrating songbirds, hawks and waders, channeling them towards the very tip of the peninsula where they briefly rest before making long journeys over sea or land. This effect is very noticeable when birding at specific spots, such as the Cape May Bird Observatory's Hawkwatch platform, where one morning we had 8 bird of prey species including 35 ospreys and approximately 50 turkey vultures. Having never birded this side of the Atlantic before, I decided to book onto a tour group so that I could have a little help with identifying unfamiliar species. This was much needed as I ended my time in North America with 125 species I had never seen before! My entire eBird trip report can be found here.