17 Kimbles Beach Road, Court House
1.2-mile loop
Bring bug spray!
Thanks, Feds, for this beautiful trail right by the beach. Nestled behind a U.S. Fish and Wildlife research facility is Songbird Trail, a short hike with a lot of plant variety bubbling out of the dirt.
When I moved back to the Cape, I was disappointed by the short length of most local hiking trails. This trail – with fancy signage and plenty of informational plaques – seems like it’s hyping itself up too much for just a forest jaunt. But reader: every mile you trek on the Cape will likely take you through three or more distinct habitats. Try to note them when the transition happens; pay attention to the ground cover, the flowers, the leaves, and see when they subtly shift.
Songbird Trail is almost like a theme park dark ride that takes you through the coolest scenes of a movie. The trail, if you enter by the parking lot (which I recommend versus the entrance across the street) brings with a wet forest and an easy-to-follow trail. I was struck by the many shades of green here. What appears monotonous – green plant after green plant – is actually a rich community of plants clawing and thrashing for survival. Just ‘cause something is green and looks like a tree doesn’t mean it’s the same as what’s next to it! Looking for small differences in leaf size, bark pattern, and other details is a lot of fun.
Take photos of the flowers and trees you see here and try to identify them using a lovely local guide, capemaywildlife.com. It’s mild-blowing compendium of the biomes, plants, and habitats that make up our delicate coastal ecosystem. A local expert, Mike Crewe, dedicated part of his life to the project. He snapped the reference photos locally and hammered out the text through lived experience and learned expertise. It’s tacky to “tell” a reader what to do, but I guess I’m telling you not to cede your curiosity to a plant identification app that takes the joy out of discovery. A site like capemaywildlife.com forces me to understand the difference between a notched petal and an arrow-headed one, to note the shape of the leaf’s edge.
But if you want to use an app, check out Merlin, an app that can identify birds by their calls. The app is completely free thanks to researchers at Cornell University. Thanks, Ivy Leagues, for giving us the Moog Synthesizer, the first functional MRI, and for my pocket friend Merlin.
Eventually you’ll cross Kimble’s Beach Road and access the second half of the walk. We saw robin’s eggs, several toads, mushrooms, and over a dozen varieties of blooming wildflowers here. The trail opens to a meadow that glows with golden sunlight around evening hours. Note the old watch tower in the distance.
The meadow portion is fun if you’re into identifying wildflowers or just like looking. I was fully convinced I found yet-to-fruit strawberries, noted by supple five-petal white flowers and a whole flapping family of stamen… But after some cross referencing, I realized I had found the false strawberry.
Contact the author, Collin Hall, at 609-886-8600 ext. 156 or by email at chall@cmcherald.com
