Summer Delehanty's Portfolio

One unfortunate truth of starting a 9 to 5 after school is that your free time dwindles significantly. Now, you may be wondering what kinda backwards degree I got that gave me so much free time I consider 40 hours a week “more work.” I’ll admit that I definitely have less working hours now, but the problem is more the rigidity of my schedule. In college, I had the freedom to do my own thing, which meant I could push back a meeting or skip a lecture to go birding and just catch up on homework until midnight. Now, I can’t exactly tell my boss that I’m missing 10am standup because I saw a Wood Stork on the Virginia rare bird alert and am driving two hours to go see it, but don’t worry, because I’ll just stay in the office all night… 

Anyways, after two weeks of working, I was starting to go through bird withdrawals. I spent my first weekend as a white-collar adult sleeping in, running errands, and attending a Northern Virginia Bird Alliance walk (which was fun socially, but the bird highlights were a couple cardinals and a flyover Wood Duck). It didn’t help that my life list was at 349 and my year list 296, both annoyingly close to a nice even number but not quite there. I was itching to see literally anything.

I had another trip coming up, one which I planned a few weeks before my move. I gave myself exactly one weekend to settle in before hightailing it out to Cape May for fall migration, unable to wait any longer. I had to leave straight from my office on Friday, and did myself no favors by staying out late Tuesday night for a baseball game and even later on Wednesday for a concert. It was very much a limp to the finish line, and I got through a Friday full of meetings running on anticipation and a ton of caffeine. The plan was to camp overnight in Delaware, bird Delaware in the morning, then take the ferry over to Cape May the next afternoon. Thanks to a few longer days earlier in the week, I was able to leave work by 3:30 for a painfully slow drive out to my campsite and an ETA one minute before sunset. 

Delaware has exactly two state forests, so I was staying in one of them. Somehow, despite it being such a small and crowded state, the tiny campground was deserted. I had to get out of my car and open up a big yellow gate to get in. By the time I made it to my site, daylight was fading quickly and I was exhausted. Rather than deal with setting up a tent in the half-light and taking it down before dawn, I threw my sleeping pad in the back of the car and put up window shades for some car camping. I finally changed my office slacks into pajamas and dug out my Trader Joe’s Udon Noodle bowl, which I ate from the popped trunk of my car in the pitch black. Very thankful I didn’t have to cook or even heat anything up. 

I updated my friends and family on my whereabouts for safety (aka, I texted them a picture of my food captioned “friday night activities”). Before starting my trip, I had such grand plans of catching up on reading in the evenings, or doing last-minute preparations for what hotspots I’d visit and the birds I’d see. Instead, I made it through approximately two pages of my book before I realized I was too tired to read and honestly too tired to do anything but sleep. It was humid, and the car was hot and stuffy, but I still passed out around 8:45pm.

After a sticky, fitful night of sleep, I woke up around 5:15. It was somehow darker than it was the previous night. I fished my iced coffee out of the cooler and got my stuff ready for the day in a zombie-like state, leaving the campground before first light. After half an hour of driving that I scarcely remember, I made it to Cape Henlopen State Park fifteen minutes before sunrise.

I’d come out to Delaware with my mom last August, that time because she was worried about my mental state after a tough breakup and flew out to take me on a trip. Quite frankly, I wasn’t THAT torn up about it, but also wasn’t about to pass up a birding opportunity. Thirteen months later, I was retracing our footsteps, albeit a bit earlier in the morning and with considerably less bugs and humidity. I started at the point of Cape Henlopen, checking the inner bay first before walking along the beach towards the lighthouse. 

The inner bay took longer than I thought, mostly because I couldn’t identify these two oblong sea ducks that were barely a speck on the edge of the beach. They were distinctly football-shaped with a dark body and white cheeks, and I was drawing a blank on what they could be. I scrolled through the list of all possible ducks, hoping they were eiders, but knowing too many things pointed to something else. But what? What else has that funny-shaped head? For some reason, I had no other ideas, and my brain was too sleepy to work properly. I eventually resolved myself to looking through my pictures later. It wasn’t until that night, in a flash of inspiration, that I figured out they were female Black Scoters—knowledge that should’ve carried over from the West Coast, but that’s ok. 

The sun rose on the wrong side of the beach over here. Rather than peaking out from behind forest and mountains to bathe the seabirds in a pinkish-orange glow, my seabirds were shadowy silhouettes and I was about to give myself permanent eye damage from staring straight at the sun. Also, there were no mountains. Or forest. It wasn’t a very bird-y morning and I was started to get impatient, which is the worst thing a birder can be. I kept second-guessing my decision to visit this location first, growing more and more agitated as the sun crept higher and all I’d found were a ridiculous number of gulls. 

I was ready to turn around when I finally glimpsed a flock of little shorebirds running in the waves. A bunch of sanderlings, plus a bonus Black-bellied Plover and Dunlin. My eyes fixed on two larger black-and-white birds and I felt the familiar tingle of excitement in my chest I get whenever I see something new. American Oystercatchers! These funny-looking guys sported a bright orange beak and tuxedo-esque markings, with their matching orange eye giving them a look of perpetual shock. They were hilarious, and I loved them, and they were addition #350 to my life list. 

I was practically laying in the sand snapping pictures, yielding a couple alarmed glances from the other beachgoers. Once I figured out the difference between a Lesser and Great Black-backed Gull (it was a lot more obvious in person), the beach was getting busy with cars and people, startling the flocks of gulls and shorebirds into the air. Time to have breakfast and head out. 

My pumpkin spice overnight oats were runny, the victim of my own laziness. No matter how many times I prove I can’t estimate measurements, I still don’t use a measuring cup, and they always turn out too watery. I sat in the driver’s seat of my car and ate them out of my tupperware anyway, dripping cooler water all over my pants, before hitting the second place in Cape Henlopen I’d visited with my mom—Gordon Pond. 

The boardwalk trail was packed with runners and bikers. One thing I still hadn’t adjusted to was the excessive friendliness of strangers. Why does everyone say good morning? How do you not get tired of saying good morning when you zoom by 15 people a minute on a bike? I don’t understand it. It took me a bit before I found my first flock of passerines: chickadees mixed with American Redstarts, a Black-and-white Warbler, and another “new world warbler sp” I couldn’t identify. 

I hadn’t had time to research what birds I might see, so I was just guessing based off vibes and what I saw last year. Unfortunately, most of the herons and egrets were gone for the summer, and I was sad to see no Reddish Egrets or Little Blue Herons. Note that I did closely inspect each Snowy Egret to make sure it was ACTUALLY a snowy, having learned my lesson from the Huntley Meadows incident.

It was nearly 10:30 by the time I was done. Cape Henlopen pushed me over to 302 species, successfully breaking my 300 species goal for the year, but I was feeling weirdly apathetic about the whole thing. It didn’t feel as satisfying as I’d hoped. Instead, it was getting hot and I wanted to go somewhere else. A couple entirely unnecessary calculations later, and I determined that three hours was enough time for another stop before my ferry departs. I made my way over to Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge about 30 minutes north, also a location I’d visited with my mom.

The sun was ruthless and I was tired and cranky. The visitor center I’d been to last time had vanished. At first I thought I was in the wrong parking lot, then I wandered around to make sure it wasn’t hiding somewhere. There was nothing but grass and a pile of dirt. I finally checked satellite images for the sake of my sanity, and saw that I was indeed in the right place but it must’ve been torn down between now and my last visit. I also couldn’t find the trail I wanted to walk, so I just did the same one as last time. After finding a Mallard instead of an American Black Duck and a marked absence of the gulls, terns, Osprey and shorebirds I was expecting, I just wanted to leave. It was probably karma for still having 300 blurry photos from these same wetlands last summer that I never went through. 

I sat sweating in my car again at 11:30, still over two hours before my ferry departs. I guess I could have lunch. Hacking apart my ciabatta roll with a butter knife, I reminisced on all the other shredded ciabatta roll sandwiches I’d eaten for lunch that year, from the massive Audubon campout in Eastern Washington to solo-exploring the northern California coast. They both felt like eons ago.

On my drive out of Prime Hook, I spotted a brand new structure and a “VISITOR CENTER” sign I must’ve missed on my way in. Still having time to kill, I popped in, grabbing a sticker and chatting with the lady at the front desk. She confirmed that they tore down the other visitor center only a couple months ago upon completion of the new one, which now sat just outside the entrance of the refuge. She was a little sad to see the old one go (I was too, having memories of buying a shirt and getting bug spray there when I went with my Mom), but she was grateful the new building had heat and air conditioning. I thanked her and finished my drive along a less-familiar highway 1 to the ferry terminal, getting there exactly the recommended hour before departure.

The people behind me in line, an older couple with a giant white van, spotted my Santa Cruz shirt and struck up a conversation. We talked about living in California, as they’d spent a few years there, and they graciously gave me a shirt and some stickers from their recent surfing competition in the Outer Banks. After that, the rest of the ferry terminal was not as interesting, but the boarding process went smoothly. 

I was told that there was good birding from the ferry, something the lady at the Prime Hook visitor center mentioned after hearing about about my plan. If you’ve never birded from a boat before, it’s about as easy as threading a sewing machine that’s actively running on the highest setting. Or putting a key in a doorknob during an earthquake while drunk. Basically, it was hard and I was bad at it, and for all I know a bird-sized Santa Claus could’ve flown by and I’d be none the wiser. I was too stubborn to give up, so I stood clutching my binoculars in the howling winds, wobbling at the bow of the ferry.

After officially exiting Delaware waters, some nearby passengers put me out of my misery. I abandoned my checklist and binoculars to talk with them about their time in the coast guard and my move across the country. They commended me on such a far move, and after hearing that I had no family remotely near me and was doing this birding trip alone, remarked that I was also very brave. I didn’t feel all that brave, just tired and slightly homesick and too disoriented to identify anything more than five feet from my face. The former coast guards did confirm the water was unusually rough and windy today, so that made me feel better.

I finally got my feet and tires on solid ground again in New Jersey, my first stop the Cape May Bird Observatory at 4pm. I bought another sticker for my collection and a fourth set of bird earrings because I couldn’t resist.

The exhaustion was setting in fast, but it was too early to head to my next campsite. I dragged myself to the meadows and stopped by the ongoing hawk watch for information. I couldn’t gather the strength to talk to anyone, but saw another bird for my year list (a Merlin) and instead started down the trails. I didn’t really see anything else, so when a couple women at a viewpoint asked what I’d seen today, I admitted as much. One of them asked if I come here regularly, so I said no, it was actually my first time, and I’d just moved from California. We went through the normal pleasantries, like wow that’s a long way (I know), do you have family out here (no), and how are you liking it (it’s good). She told me her group was just visiting, but maybe she’d see me here again in a year and I’d be a local expert! I laughed and said thank you as they carried on down the trail. 

I didn’t feel like an expert at all and was getting frustrated at my inability to find and identify birds over here. I missed my West Coast birds. The wanderlust was wearing off and the homesickness kicking in, amplified by a call with my Dad on Friday where I finally admitted I won’t be able to make family Thanksgiving. This Cape May trip, originally planned as something to look forward to after the move, wasn’t helping much. I gave myself the drive to the campground to feel all my emotions before cranking up the music and pulling it together. Belleplain State Forest was much nicer than my last campground (sorry Delaware). I got there at 6pm, so I had a little more daylight than the first night. 

I spent my evening reading, writing, and enjoying the chucking of a Wood Thrush hanging out by my campsite, a sound softer than the thumping of music coming from a site down the road. I knew this spot had a reputation for being rowdy, but I only needed a place to sleep for the night, so I didn’t mind.

Soon enough it was dark and my evening was winding down. The faint breeze was much colder and drier than last night, which I was grateful for. No more than a few minutes after I’d turned off my lantern and curled up in my blanket mound did I hear voices. Two women were walking to the bathroom, loudly debating if my campsite was occupied or if they could walk through as a shortcut. The bobbing of their headlamps cut through my (uncovered) front windows and I wondered if they could see me. They stood by my car in conversation for a bit, but I never did hear their final conclusion—I was fast asleep before they reached it.