Patrick Carney reports:

"I thought this picture that I took in DeKorte Park over the weekend might be good for a blog. It features a Snapping Turtle and the Killdeer who didn't want him there!"

(Thanks, Patrick!)

If you have been anywhere near DeKorte Park's Lyndhurst Nature Reserve in recent days, you've noticed the accumulation of cottony seeds all over the place.

They are Cottonwood seeds — more about the tree (pictured at left) and the seeds here.

An earlier post on Cottonwood Catkins is here.

Who's that perched in a tree at Laurel Hill earlier this month?

Another pic or two follows.

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Jim Wright, who maintains this blog for New Jersey Meadwolands Commission, also writes a twice-monthly nature column for The South Bergenite. Here's his latest, on the Kearny Marsh:

My favorite place to go kayaking in the Meadowlands is an out-of-the-way place called the Kearny Marsh, tucked away between Schuyler Avenue, the Belleville Pike and Bergen Avenue.

The 310-acre fresh-water marsh, which includes plenty of open water and splendid views of Manhattan, is also a world apart.

Kearny resident Ron Shields explores the marsh often in his 11-foot-long ocean kayak, documenting his finds with a Canon 50D digital camera, and he knows these wetlands about as well as the resident Great Egrets do.

Ron, the longtime principal of Harrison High School, says: “This is my third year kayaking the Kearny Marsh and it's still as exciting as ever.  The main reason I kayak here is the sense of discovery one experiences.  Most of the time, you're there alone. and the sense of isolation one encounters (especially given the skylines Newark and New York City) is amazing.”

One of the main attractions, according to Ron, is finding the beauty in things that most people overlook. “Whether it's photographing a bald eagle within the site of the turnpike, watching a peregrine falcon strafe a flock of shorebirds or encountering a belligerent common moorhen protecting her young, the wonders of the Kearny Marsh still give me reason to pause,” says Ron.

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DeKorte Park's Meadowlands Environment Center will be closed Monday for Memorial Day. The park itself will be open from 8 a.m. to dusk.

One of our favorite spots in the Meadowlands is the Kearny Marsh, and we like to see the trails groomed and free of trash.

That's why, for the third year in a row, the Meadowlands Commission, Bergen County Audubon Society and the Northern New Jersey Geocachers are sponsoring a two-hour clean-up of the marsh, from 10 a.m. to noon, on Sunday, June 3.

We could use your help!

Details follow. (Note: We probably will not have the use of canoes this year — sorry!)

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Don Torino, who leads the NJMC/Bergen County Audubon twice-monthly walk, also writes a weekly column for wildnewjersey.tv.

This week he writes about our favorite bright green bird — the Monk Parkeets (of Ridgefield).

The link is here.

Kris Niewiadomski was nice enough to share this photo of a Black Skimmer grabbing a bite at DeKorte one evening this weekend.

Doug Morel reports seeing a Black Skimmer at DeKorte's Shorebird Pool last night at 8.

Doug reports: "Fantastic looks, great to watch this bird cruising & skimming the water for food."

Skimmers have also been reported in Hunterdon County recently — a rarity.

(Thanks, Kris; thanks, Doug!)

Ron writes:

Here are images of action captured late Sunday afternoon at one of the larger "puddles" near the Schuyler Avenue entrance to Disposal Road. 

All photos were taken from the front seat of my car. 

More pix and another Ron observation follow.

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A birder reports seeing two Black Skimmers at DeKorte Park at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday night. Details and pics to follow if all goes according to plan.