May 14th to 16th
Registration is OPEN
Shop Optics from FeatherEdge Optics
Podcasts and Video Interviews
It is our 44th year!!
All NEW programs for 2021
Including live coverage in the field, shorebirds and Wisdom, the Albatross presented by the US Fish and Wildlife service
Limited workshops before, during and after the virtual festival
NJ Audubon members get special discounts on registration and select program tickets. Not a member – join today.
2021 Cape May Spring Festival
There is no place like Cape May New Jersey for springtime birding and we are going to bring it to you….again!!
We’ve put together a phenomenal mix of live streaming from migration hotspots such as Belleplain State Forest, The Nature Conservancy’s South Cape May Meadows, and Garrett Family Preserve. Add to that presentations from Cape May’s finest ranging from Scott Whittle’s warbler identification to taking a trip along the Delaware Bayshore (i.e. “shorebird alley”) with Kevin Karlson and Glen Davis.
Check out our featured/keynote speakers! Mark Garland speaks Friday on Cape May and pandemic birding. On Saturday, Kelly Goodale of the US Fish and Wildlife Service brings us the story of Hawaii’s favorite bird, Wisdom the Laysan Albatross, originally banded on the island atoll of Midway by Chandler Robbins in 1956. At 69+ years of age, Wisdom is the oldest known banded wild bird, and is still returning to Midway annually to raise a chick. The stories she could tell…
At Cape May, you never know what’s coming over the horizon. NJ Audubon’s Cape May Spring Festival will be the next best thing to being there!.
Keynotes
FRIDAY
Mark Garland – Pandemic Birding
Mark Garland is a naturalist based in West Cape May. He previously worked as Senior Naturalist for NJ Audubon’s Cape May Bird Observatory, and currently serves as Director of NJA’s Monarch Monitoring Project. Mark has been studying monarch butterfly migration for over 25 years, and in 1995 he founded an ongoing study of monarch migration at Cape Charles, Virginia. Mark has led over 200 nature tours to various destinations around the world; in 2018 he led the NJ Audubon’s trip to Mexico for wintering monarchs. In 2019 he received the Paul Bartsch Award for Distinguished Contributions to Natural History.
SATURDAY
Kelly Goodale – The story of “Wisdom” the Laysan Albatross
Kelly Goodale is a wildlife biologist with the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service. From 2017 until 2020, she was stationed at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge located at the far northeast end of the Hawaiian archipelago living among 3 million seabirds. Kelly started her career in conservation after receiving her B.S. from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in 2009 working seasonally throughout the United States including Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge and Cape Hatteras National Seashore. She landed in Hawai‘i in 2013 to work with endangered seabirds and waterbirds at Haleakalā National Park. Currently, she is a wildlife biologist at the O‘ahu/Maui National Wildlife Refuge Complex and is pursuing her M.S. in Tropical Conservation Biology and Environmental Science at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo.
