If you’re in a boat by the Hackensack River’s marshes at low tide, keep your eye out along the banks for a tiny critter call
ed a fiddler crab.
One claw is oversized, to the point it almost looks like the crab is wielding a fiddle — hence the name.
Very strange. Very cool.
The fiddler crabs pictured here photographed at the Saw Mill Creek Wildlife Management Area.
More on fiddler crabs here.
We saw indigo buntings twice this morning, once on Disposal Road between Meadowlands Commission headquarters, then again on the Transco Trail between the Lyndhurst Nature Reserve and the Saw Mill Creek Trail in North Arlington.
We have seen them in the same area several times now.
A recent Jersey Birds report by birder Michael Britt reflects the avian diversity and abundance in the Meadowlands:
My son and I birded the Hackensack Meadows Saturday evening.
"Highlights"
Semipalmated & Least Sandpipers (mixed flock of 5000+)
Great Egret (30+)
Snowy Egret (30+)
Great Blue Heron (3)
Black-crowned Night Heron
Green Heron
Northern Harrier (adult female)
Osprey
Click "Continue reading…" immediately below for more.
Every year, Ramapo College and the Meadowlands Commission sponsor a survival camp for kids.
This was the big canoe race. All survived.
More on the camp here: Download students_survive_meadowlands_experience.pdf.
Birder Ray Duffy reports:
I visited DeKorte Park in Lyndhurst Thursday afternoon around 3:45 p.m. It was low tide when I arrived and the pools filled up.
The three highlight birds were:
* The juvenile Tricolored Heron which is still present along the Marsh Discovery Trail. He got flushed as I walked the trail and he camped out near the group of phragmites near the Environmental Center.
* I also spotted a Scaup. I think it is a Lesser, but it’s kind of tough to tell as he was feeding in the mud, I’ve included pics, I’d appreciate a second opinion.
*I also spotted a Laughing Gull, my first for Bergen county this year.
Click "Continue reading…" immediately below for the complete list.
