Snow On The Beach...

I've been waiting over a year for this opportunity to present itself again. Yesterday as many of us in the mid-Atlantic know, was a pretty snowy day. What made this special, in Cape May at least, was the amount of snow that fell. At my house which is about 10 or so miles north of Cape May Point, we received about 8" of snow in about 24 hours. While this may seem like a piddly amount to some of our viewers to the North or in the Mid-West, it is all relative. A snow such as this, for Cape May, is very much comparative to the 2 feet of snow (in a few to 24 hours) blizzards seen in the Mid-West. I have to admit I miss those events!!! But I digress.

Snow depth averaged 8 inches in the less wind blown portions of my yard.

(measuring the snow near my butterfly bush at home.)

I have been waiting for the ability to post a few more snowy Cape May photos just as I did back on December 6,2007, when I wrote Cape May like you've probably nevere seen it. At that time I was reminded by George Myers that I'd neglected to include an interesting shot, and one of seemingly great oxymoron, snow on the beach. Yes, while this does happen, in Cape May it is not often enough for my liking.

This go round I figured rather than posting images of some favored birding locations under snow (there a couple of those images though) I'd show you a slightly different take. Of course this time Georgie, I took some shots of snow on the beach!

Looking down the cove toward Cape May Point from the 2nd Ave. Jetty. Notice the snow on the beach!! I was a day late and a dollar short as much of the snow that fell had already been melted by the high tide or blown away. That and Cape May seemed to only get about half the snow we did near Cape May Court House. It seemed the Island average only about 4-5 inches verses 8-10 only about 10 miles north.

Another look at the cove.

The icy road to Higbee's Beach WMA. I bet it's pretty easy to find a parking place today!

Looking down the main path at Higbee. A few hearty souls (depending on how you look at it)
were out and about enjoying the snow fall yesterday.

Look close, can you tell where I am standing? If you guessed this this the first field at Higbee you are right. The fields were cut last fall. That and it's covered with 4 inches of snow.

Many of you may know this cedar as one of the better places to look for lingering Cape May Warblers. Yep, it's the large cedar in the northwestern corner of the Higbee parking lot.
Suffice to say there were no Cape May Warblers today!

Hidden Valley was mowed as well this past fall/winter.
I wonder where the Bobolink will hang out this spring?

A quick look at the entrance to the Beanery. Yea, it's snow covered here too.
Talk about Winter Birding!

Look! More snow on the beach. Sunset Beach this time though. The snow (and the 15-20 mph 10 degree windchill) make it a bit tough to try and find any Cape May Diamonds.

With a wind out of the NW the wave were churning on the Bay.
What is left of the Concrete Ship is holding tight.

With all the wave action by these coastal storms comes the unavoidable beach erosion.
Sunset Beach seems to have lost a good amount of sand from this storm.
Off to Delaware or points south!