Reason to be There

     My wife and I visited Sunset Beach at Cape May, New Jersey for about an hour on the morning of August 5, 2015.  Sunset Beach is where Delaware Bay enters the Atlantic Ocean and, as its name implies, has a broad, sandy beach.  Several people were there fishing, walking on the sand and for other activities.  We were there to experience the scenery and water birds.  There weren't many kinds of birds at Sunset Beach, but they all had a reason to be there. 
     The first birds we saw were those icons along the Atlantic Seacoast in summer- laughing gulls.  They are the abundant gulls with black heads and loud cries that sound like someone laughing.  Their young of the year are mostly brown on top, without the black heads.
     The laughing gulls at Sunset Beach were everywhere, in the air, on the water trying to catch small fish, and perched on utility poles.  But when a gull noticed a tidbit of discarded food on the beach, it dropped quickly to seize and eat it.  Gulls, like vultures, obviously watch each other for evidences of food.  When one gull abruptly dropped to the beach to get food, other gulls saw that motion and realized food had been found.  All gulls within seeing distance flew quickly to the spot to try to get their share, creating entertainment in the process.
     We saw three types of terns at Sunset Beach- the large royals with their orange beaks, the tiny least terns with their yellow bills and common terns.  Gulls and terns are done nesting by this time of year and have scattered along the shores of larger bodies of water to look for ample food supplies.  All the tern tribe fly over the water in search of small fish near the surface.  When prey is spotted, they suddenly hover, then dive beak-first into the water with a tiny splash.  They catch their finny prey in their bills, rise from the water and swallow their victims whole and head-first.
     A few double-crested cormorants were also in Delaware Bay to catch fish.  They dive under water from the surface and swim deeper than the terns can dive to catch fish larger than the terns can handle.  All that reduces competition for food between terns and cormorants.
     We also saw two kinds of shorebirds on the sand at the shoreline at Sunset Beach, sanderlings and ruddy turnstones.  Both these species are recently down from nesting on the Arctic tundra.  Flocks of sanderlings flew low and swiftly along the beach, and one group trotted over the wet sand at the water line as they looked for invertebrates in the sand and water to eat.           
     Turnstones in twos and threes wandered over slightly drier parts of the beach to pick up invertebrates.  That choice of feeding location reduced rivalry for food with the sanderlings.
     While watching the water and beach birds, I noticed many green darner dragonflies, most of them flying north low over the beach like tiny helicopters.  They probably were picking off flies and other flying insects as they rapidly moved along.  In about a month, these dragonflies, and many others of their kind, will go south for the winter.
     Sunset Beach was interesting during the short time we were there.  And all the creatures I noticed had a reason for being there.