Cattle Egrets and Baby Oyster Catchers

On our first full day of vacation we did some bird watching because the weather was not very conducive to being on the beach. We went to try to find some cattle egrets that had been reported out on Rt. 9 behind Avalon. We didn’t find them the first time that we looked, and so it was on to Stone harbor point. While at the point we ran into a young woman who works for the state of New Jersey who alerted us to the presence of Baby Oyster Catchers further down the beach.

We first saw a mom sitting by her baby very far away but couldn’t get very good pictures. Then we came upon a couple who was much closer, and they had a small baby. Mom saw us first and got the baby into a tuft of grass where he was completely hidden. Mom was watching over the baby while he hid

We waited a few minutes and the baby eventually toddled out. Mom got him to go back into the grass, but we were able to get a few pictures first.

Later in the evening, we went back out to find the Cattle Egrets and were rewarded with 4 of them right beside the parking lot. They were nice and close, and they were very busy eating so we were able to get good pictures.