Cape May and Surrounds Birding

[floraphile]

I am planning a birding trip to Cape May and surrounds this Fall.  We can either do mid September or the 3rd week in October.  Would one be better than the other?  I think I might prefer going when the Fall Festival is not going on--it is scheduled for the latter part of the 2nd full week of October.

[Connor Cochrane]

I lived in New Jersey for a few year’s before I moved out to California, but unfortunately I know more about the north part of the state. 

[Tony Leukering]

It depends on what you want to see. The primary show in mid-Sep is shorebirds and warblers (and other passerine migrants). In late Oct, the Avalon Seawatch begins to steal the show, with days of 100K+ scoter flights. Both time periods miss the raptor peak (first half of Oct), although late Oct is also pretty good.

You can answer this for yourself by pulling the CM Co eBird data and looking at the bar charts.