Wilmington (Brandywine parks)

I have a suspicion that the next three months will be a summer slog. I’ll be going up the East Coast during summer travel season; it will be hot, crowded, expensive and buggy. And summer is the least desirable season for almost any sort of nature photography. Everything is green, which is pleasant but boring. And all of the foliage makes it difficult to find animals, especially small birds. The latter was evidenced today in full force. Those are not complaints, just reality.

I spent the morning at Brandywine Creek State Park and the afternoon at the First State National Historical Park Brandywine Valley . Are you lost yet?

The State park has been around for a while and is well administered. They have a visitor center, which opened promptly at 8 AM. And you can purchase your admission at a kiosk in the parking lot. It is a very pleasant and well-marked park. I could hear many birds, but could see few of them and almost never sitting still.

I then headed to the adjacent National Park site. My first adventure was even finding where to start. I could see the borders on the map, but there was no such thing as a visitor center or obvious starting point. I settled on a parking lot that looked promising, and indeed it turned out to be the right place. A number of rangers were present and directed me a short distance down the road where they had set up a larger parking lot to accommodate weekend traffic. Jordan, a law enforcement ranger also directed me to the start of the main trail and gave me information on spur trails.

Again, this was a pleasant environment and I could hear many birds, but see almost none of them. On the trail, I met Stephanie, a serious birder. We chased an Oven Bird for quite a while but I was never able to photograph it. That was true for most of the other birds I heard that day. If you are not familiar, the Merlin app, by Cornell Ornithology lab, allows identification by both sound and image. Pretty much everyone on the trail has the app at this point. So I knew I was missing various woodpeckers, vireos, wrens. They were in the forest, just hidden in the foliage.

I returned to the parking lot and stopped to chat with the two rangers that were directing traffic there. Martina is the Chief Ranger and Samantha is the acting interpretation, education and volunteer coordinator. It turns out that Samantha is largely responsible for the excellent film mentioned in yesterday’s blog. Again, I recommend it. Part of my commentary had to do with the many cyclist sharing the trail with hikers. I found it hazardous and disruptive. What Martina, Sam, and eventually Jordan explained to me is that this is a relatively new National Park. It was under private ownership for many years and only transferred to the Park service about ten years ago, a very short time in the life of a National Park. They are still studying the best way to administer the park and taking public comment. I also had a long conversation with the ladies about my trip and they both had many excellent suggestions for my future states. Martina has worked at many of the parks, so that information was very valuable.

This is my last day in Delaware, tomorrow I head East to New Jersey, or just Jersey to the natives.