The Nature Conservancy at South Cape May Meadows Preserve

The Nature Conservancy at South Cape May Meadows is a beautifully preserved nature park that offers walking trails and bird watching to visitors. You'll find it located at 101 Bayshore Road in Cape May, New Jersey. It's open year-round during daylight hours and is free to visit. You'll find a large parking lot located right outside the front entrance.

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You'll want to dress appropriately for the current weather conditions and wear comfortable walking shoes. You'll be doing a lot of walking on marked trails. I recommend applying sunscreen and bug spray before you head into the conversation area and bring along a bottle of water. It's an easy walk on the trails with no hills to climb.

After parking we headed to the entrance and checked out all of the posted information which talks about some of the wildlife that you may see while walking the trails. You're encouraged to bring along your camera and binoculars for close-up viewing.

Some of the wildlife that you may encounter include but are not limited to: nesting birds, raptors, owls, ducks, geese, rabbits, turtles, snakes, red foxes, raccoons, seabirds, regular birds, etc. As soon as we stepped through the entrance we encountered a rabbit who wasn't afraid of people. Please don't touch, chase or feed any wildlife that you encounter.

We headed down the trail on the right (you can check out the map at the entrance) and checked out some of the natural wildflowers that are growing along the trail. The trails are unpaved (you walk on a stones) but it's a fairly even surface. I'm disabled and had no issues while on the trails. Periodically you'll come across a wooden park bench on the side of the trail if you need to sit down for a rest.

Every once in awhile you'll come across the marshes and that's where you can find ducks, geese, turtles and other wildlife that hangs out in or around the water. I really enjoyed seeing the natural fauna around the marsh waters which included very tall cattails and different type's of wildflowers. Oh yeah...we did encounter a few frogs along the way too!

You'll come across a few information plaques (boards) that I recommend that you stop to read. They give you information on the area's wildlife. What's fascinating is that some wildlife lives there year-round and other's just pass through during migration. We love learning about wildlife and how we can do our part in preserving their natural habitats.

After walking the trail for 20 to 25 minutes we encountered another trail that leads up to the beach access area. To go up that trail will take you an additional 3-4 minute. I highly recommend this stop on your journey because you'll be treated to some beautiful views of the beach, the Atlantic Ocean and you'll see the Cape May Lighthouse off in the distance. There's an information board that you can read that will teach you about the beach nesting birds that visit the area.

We then walked back to the main trail and headed around the loop. You'll now be on the trail that heads back towards the parking lot. After being on that trail for about 10-13 minutes we came across the wooden bird watching stand. You can go in there to look out into the marsh and hopefully see some birds. The walls are lined with birding posters to teach you about the birds you may see. This is a great place to use your binoculars (birding blind is what hubby calls it) and camera. We saw a few Canadian Geese, a Heron and two Egrets out in the water.

You'll head back down the trail and after a 5 minute walk you'll encounter a wood structure which is a lookout platform. You'll need to climb up a few steps to get up onto it. Once up there are a few benches you can sit down own. It gives you some nice views of the surrounding area.  We spent a good 10 minutes up there looking out into the marsh areas. We did spotted a few ducks and geese who were having a great time splashing around in the water. It was a HOT day, so I assume it was a great way to cool off.

We headed back out onto the trail and spent another 10 minutes or so walking it until we arrived at the entrance/exit. The total time that we spent out on the trails was a little over an hour. You can certainly walk it in less time...but we took our time so that we could view the wildlife and take photographs along the way.