The Cape May Hawk Watch and Nature Trail

The Cape May Hawk Watch and Nature Trail is located inside the Cape May Point State Park in New Jersey. The park is 100% free to visit. At the park you'll find the world-famous Cape May Lighthouse, a small indoor museum, nature trails, picnic pavilions, the World War II Bunker on the Beach, a sandy beach for sunning & splashing in the water, and The Cape May Hawk Watch. 

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What is The Cape May Hawk Watch? It's a wooden platform that's built on the edge of the water where you can go to watch various shore birds, hawks, swans, ducks, etc. They keep a posted schedule at the entrance and it's open year-round. 

You'll want to wear clothing that's appropriate for the current weather conditions and comfortable walking shoes. If you're visiting during the hot summertime months bring along your sunscreen and water bottle. You won't find a lot of shade other than going inside the air-conditioned museum building or visitor's center. 

Follow the signs and walk up onto the wooden boardwalk and platform. There's 3 levels to it. You'll find information boards posted along the way that give you history on the area and the wildlife that calls the area home. Bring along your binnoculars so that you can see the ducks, swans, shorebirds, hawks and other animals that live in the surrounding area. 

On the day that we visited we didn't see any hawks, but we did see over 50+ white swans swimming in the water and a few ducks. They were pretty active and you could hear them honking and quacking from 100 yards away. The platform does have a few steps for those who may be handicapped, so please be aware there are a few steps to climb.

Each side of the Hawk Watching Platform contains a Cape May Nature Walking Trail. It's a sandy trail that is pretty level, but lacks shading. We didn't see any benches along the trail, so if you need to sit down and rest...you'll have to do that at the entrance of the trail. 

While walking the trail we found a few more information boards that gave us information on some of the butterflies in the area and I was able to photograph one up close. Another information board gave us information on some of the plants in the area. They keep the trails well-maintained and they were a fairly easy walk.

After checking out the Hawk Watch and walking the nature trail we headed over to the little Cape May Point Nature Center Museum. We spent about 25 minutes in there looking at the exhibits and learning more about the area. If you want more information or to pick up a couple of souvenirs you can head into the information center or over to the little gift shop that sits a few yards away from the lighthouse.

All activities at the Cape May Point State Park are FREE except for the Cape May Lighthouse tour. You can walk around the grounds of the lighthouse for free, but they do charge an admission fee if you want to enter it and climb to the top. Other than that, everything else is FREE and a great family-friendly activity to do with the kids.