Harrier Meadow is the site of next Tuesday's free nature walk, run by the Meadowlands Commission and the Bergen County Audubon Society.
The walk begins at 10 a.m. at Harrier and — if weather permits — includes a free bird-banding demo by NJMC Naturalist Mike Newhouse.
You'll need a sign a standard liability release to go into Harrier Meadow, which is usually closed to the public. Download it here: Download HARRIER Release.
As you can see from these photos, Ron Shields is still on a roll in the Kearny Marsh.
Above, a Green Heron and friend. Below, and Osprey and a Pied-billed Grebe.
Mill Creek Marsh, earlier week. Monarch caterpillar. A little late in the season?
At Tuesday's NJMC commission meeting, long-time Executive Director Bob Ceberio announced he is retiring at year's end.
Although the announcement was not unexpected, it is still difficult for those of us who have had the privilege of working with him to accept that he is leaving.
Throughout his three decades with the Meadowlands Commission, he has had a profound and lasting impact on the environment in the Meadowlands, creating and executing a vision where both humans and nature not only co-exist but thrive.
When Bob moved to the Meadowlands as a teenager more than four decades ago, much of the region was literally a smelly dump, and the Hackensack River was so polluted that even barnacles couldn't hack it.
Ospreys breed here now, and there are too many egrets and herons to count. The Meadowlands is an ecotourism destination these days, with more than 280 species of birds seen hereabouts — and rarities seen on a regular basis.
A lot of people have done amazing things to help the Meadowlands bounce back, and Bob Ceberio has been one of the key players in that revival.
It also needs to be said that Bob has been a champion not only of this blog from Day One, but, more important, the concept that it embodies: a celebration of the natural wonders of the Meadowlands.
Thank you, Bob.
A follower of this blog has asked us to post a photo of a band on a Snowy Egret, so everyone will know what to look for. (Thanks, Mike, and thanks for the photo, NYC Audubon!)
This photo was taken of a young Snowy Egret on Hoffman Island (hence the blue band) earlier this summer. Egrets tagged on South Brother Island have yellow bands.
Hoffman Island is a small artificial island off Staten Island, roughly 18 miles south of Mill Creek Marsh, where a banded Snowy Egret was seen Monday morning. Photo of Hoffman is on right.
Mary Jo Marino, the "Harbor Herons" volunteer was spotted the banded Snowy Egret, was nice enough to show on a map where she saw the bird.
She adds: "The bird was in the North Impoundment. I first sighted him near the foot bridge. He then flew to the area east of Least Tern Island, and then later over near the border between North Impoundment and South Impoundment.
"This bird was banded on Hoffman Island. The theory is that most of these birds forage in Raritan Bay area. However, here's this young guy out in Secaucus, the area that's supposed to be frequented by the birds from North and South Brother Islands. Go figure." (Thanks, Mary Jo!)
Scroll down for earlier post.
Harrier Meadow is the site of next Tuesday's free nature walk, run by the Meadowlands Commission and the Bergen County Audubon Society.
The walk begins at 10 a.m. at Harrier and — if weather permits — includes a free bird-banding demo by NJMC Naturalist Mike Newhouse.
You'll need a sign a standard liability release to go into Harrier Meadow, which is usually closed to the public. Download it here: Download HARRIER Release.
Full details follow.
Kate Ruskin of the New Jersey Audubon Society reports that a banded Harbor Heron was spotted in the Meadowlands on Monday:
One of our NJAS volunteers, Mary Jo Marino, spotted a banded Snowy Egret in Mill Creek Marsh [Monday] morning. She spotted an individual with a blue band that read "2D" and after a volley of emails in a matter of hours (thanks Mary Jo for the prompt notification!), Susan Elbin of NYCA reports the following:
"SNEG tagged '2D' was banded on Hoffman Island on 8 June 2010. The bird was banded as a pre-fledgling, so it's a young of the year. According to Mary Jo, 2D spent quite a while foraging in OWA [open water above the knee]."
This is the second sighting of a SNEG banded on Hoffman in the Meadowlands this season. Also keep an eye out for yellow bands, which mark birds tagged on South Brother Island. (Thanks, Kate, Mary Jo and Susan!)
Note: We checked for the bird on our lunch hour Tuesday, when we took the photo above. We did not see the bird despite looking in several of the impoundments.
For future reference, we are posting a downloadable map of Mill Creek Marsh. If you see a great bird, like Kevin Bolton's American Golden Plover or Mary Jo's banded SNEG, you can download the map, denote digitally where you saw the bird, and then e-mail us here — we'll post it on the blog so others know where to start looking for it.
Download it here:
Click here and then click "save image as"
Previous posts on the Harbor Herons Project are here.
Dale Jankowski took this sweeping shot of the Saw Mill Creek Mud Flats at DeKorte just before 8 a.m. on Saturday. (Thanks, Dale!)
Chris Takacs managed to get this shot of the distant Whimbrel from a pontoon boat at Anderson Creek Marsh by the Hackensack River.
He got the shot in part because of the expert helmspersonship of the NJMC's Gabrielle Bennett-Meany. (Thanks, Chris and Gaby!)
According to an old NJMC bird list, the last Meadwolands sighting for a Whimbrel was in 1991, on the ponds at the 1-E Landfill by Don Smith.
More on Whimbrels here.
Scroll down for Complete Bird Fest list and more pix.
