The year 2012 in the Meadowlands marked the opening of River Barge Park in Carlstadt, Butterfly Day and Moth Night, lots of great nature sightings, our continued partnership with Bergen County Audubon Society, and (alas) Hurricane Sandy.

We thought we'd remember 2012 by looking back, month by month.

Here are some highlights from September (click on the text to link to the post):

Sept. 5: DeKorte Black-and-white Warbler (Patrick Carney Photo)

Sept. 10: Virginia Rail at DeKorte  (Ron Shields photo)

Sept. 12: Tribute in Light from DeKorte Park

Sept. 13: Column on 'The Lost Bird Project'

Sept. 21: Incredible Caterpillar (right; Kate Lepis photo) 

Sept. 27: Greg Gard's Disposal Road Raptor Shots (above)

Sept. 28: Bird-banding Explained (featuring Mike Newhouse!)

Get a great start on your 2013 birding totals with our first First Sunday of the Month guided walk, featuring DeKorte Park, Disposal Road and Harrier Meadow. We'll be looking for winter ducks, winter raptors, and anything else we can set our eyes on.

You can download the required liability waiver — good for all of 2013 — here:

Download 2013 njmc-guided bird-walk release

Full info on the walk follows.

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With a new year comes a new liability release for NJMC guided walks, and the great news is: The release is absolutely free, and it's good all of 2013.

You read it right: It's absolutely free, and it's good for the entire year. Destined to be a classic. Doesn't get much better than that.

Download it here:

Download 2013 njmc-guided bird-walk release

Jim Wright, who keeps this blog, also writes a twice-monthly Meadowlands nature column for the South Bergenite. His latest is on the Meadowlands Big Year competition:

This year marked the first-ever “Big Year’ competition in the Meadowlands — a contest for birding enthusiasts to see how many species they could see in the district during this calendar year. Although 2012 is not over quite yet, one thing is clear: the Big Year has been a big hit.

All 11 participants (including me) have already seen more than 100 species in the Meadowlands, and two participants have seen more than 200 species. Now that’s a lot of birds!

Since the goal of the Big Year was not only to encourage folks to do more bird-watching closer to home in the Meadowlands but also to highlight the wide range of amazing birds we have here, I have to say “mission accomplished.”

I recently asked participants what their “best” bird was so far, and the variety of the replies gives you an idea of the wide range of birds we have been seeing.

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Ron Shields had mentioned that he had seen a Wild Turkey hanging out in a cemetery on the southeast corner of the intersection of Schuyler Avenue and the Belleville Turnpike in Kearny.

We looked for the turkey discreetly (it is a cemetery, after all) from Schuyler Ave. and — sure enough — there it was.  There's even free parking along Schuyler.  One of the easiest birds to see all year. (Thanks, Ron!)

The year 2012 in the Meadowlands marked the opening of River Barge Park in Carlstadt, Butterfly Day and Moth Night, lots of great nature sightings, our continued partnership with Bergen County Audubon Society, and (alas) Hurricane Sandy.

We thought we'd remember 2012 by looking back, month by month.

Here are some highlights from August (click text for link to the post):

Aug. 2: Molting Cicada at Moth Night

Aug. 9: More about that Banded Peregrine

Aug. 10: Clear-winged Moth

Aug. 15: How Now Brown Dow?

Aug. 16: Tricolored Fishing (above, photo by Herb Houghton)

Aug. 20: Amazing Least Bittern Shots

Aug. 28: Meadowlands Sunset Shots

Aug. 30: Dragonfly Report (Photo by Stephen Buckingham, right)

If you participated in all of the 30+ guided walks and events sponsored by the Meadowlands Commission and the Bergen County Audubon Society in 2012 and paid really great attention, you could have seen 142 species of birds.

Denise Farrell of the BCAS compiled a list of all the species seen at these events. Pretty amazing list but it's a pretty amazing place!

(Thanks Denise!)

Full list follows. (Our first walk for 2013 is Sunday, Jan. 6. Details soon.)

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Jana Brusich writes:

"Santa left a Bald Eagle perched on a tree along the NJ Turnpike by Exit 16W.  

"Then to find more adult and immature Eagles riding a thermal along the Hackensack River!"

Two more eagle pix follow. (Thanks, Jana!)

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As we reviewed the Meadowlands Nature Blog posts from this past year, we realized just how many awesome images we posted from nature photographers.

In an effort to showcase these talents, and to get more folks to appreciate the natural beauty of the Meadowlands, we are going to try a new feature: "Monday Photographer Showcase."

We invite photographers to send in three of their favorite Meadowlands images, a brief bio, a little squib about why they love photographing here, and a link to their online pages.

Images must be from the Meadowlands, and should be around 150K. If you don't watermark them, we'll add a copyright for you.

Email your photos to jim.wright@njmeadowlands.gov, and feel free to suggest ways to make the showcase better. We'll give it a try, and keep it going for as long as there's interest out there.

The year 2012 in the Meadowlands marked the opening of River Barge Park in Carlstadt, Butterfly Day and Moth Night, lots of great nature sightings, our continued partnership with Bergen County Audubon Society, and (alas) Hurricane Sandy.

We thought we'd remember 2012 by looking back, month by month.

Here are some highlights from July (click on the text to link to the post):

July 3: Sphinx Moths and Butterflies Galore

July 12: Marsh Wren & More

July 16: Dennis the Menace

July 23: Butterfly Day: The Full List

July 26: First Ever Moth Night

July 27: More on the DeKorte Tagged Egret

July 27: More Meadowlands Moth Night