We had a great turnout of folks and birds for our fifth annual First-Sunday-of-July walk at DeKorte Park.

Great folks, great birds — including several Great Blue Heron flyovers. (Thanks to Joe Koscielny for the shot above!)

Full list of 39 species, courtesy of Denise Farrell, Julie McCall and Mary Kostus follows. Continue reading →

Here are the tallies as of June 30  in the Meadowlands Big Year for 2013.

Congrats to all for competing. We hope you are having fun near to home, and seeing lots of great birds.

Keep in mind that some birders are in the Meadowlands all the time, and others get here occasionally, so their birdage may differ drastically.

If you’re name’s not on the list, please e-mail Jim Wright at jim.wright (at) njmeadowlands.gov. It’s still not too late! Sign up now!

Here is the leader board as of June 30:

1. Chris Takacs: 178, (2012 reigning champion, ineligible for prizes
in 2013 as a result, lives in district)
2. Mike Newhouse 176 (NJMC, setting a target number for competitors.)
3. Ray Duffy, 167 (in district)
4. Jackie DeMarco, 155 (out of district)
5. Mike Wolfe,  141 species (out of district)
6. Dennis Cheeseman, 136 (out of district)
7. Jim Wright,  131  (NJMC staff, ineligible for prizes)
8. Mike Turso 126 (out of district)
9. Oliver Stringham, 113  (in district)
10. Julie McCall, 113 (in district)
11.  Roy Woodford 112 (out of district)
12. Rob Fanning 108  (out of district)

The leader board as of May 31 follows.

Continue reading →

Our latest Teaser subjectt can be seen on the Kingsland Overlook in DeKorte Park. We know it as Western Salsify, but it’s also called Goats Beard.

Congrats to Deedee Burnside and    Trudy Gerlach for providing the right answer!

More on Goat’s-Beard or Goatsbeard (it is spelled many ways) here.

Dennis Cheeseman writes:

“Looks like the Ravens are already checking out MetLife Stadium for the upcoming football season.”

Thanks, Dennis!

One of the neat things about River Barge Park is the environmental pavilion. Its thatched roof, made from New Jersey Phragmites, took a bit of a beating from Hurricane Sandy.

Thatcher extraordinaire William P. Cahill and his son Liam are doing the repairs.

They could be done by week’s end.

For an earlier post on the amazing thatched roof, click here.

(Thanks to the NJC’s Katy Weidel for the photo above!)

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Between the two Bergen County Audubon Society/Meadowlands Commission walks at DeKorte on Sunday, we tallied quite a few butterfly species — and a couple of clear-winged moth — on Sunday. (Thanks to Julie McCall and Denise Farrell for the list, which follows):

Black Swallowtail
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
Pearl Crescent
Summer Azure
Eastern Tailed-Blue
Wild Indigo Duskywing
Common Sootywing
Silver-spotted Skipper
Broad-winged Skipper
Cabbage White
Orange Sulphur

plus Snowberry Clear-winged Moth and Hummingbird Clear-winged Moth (at least four)

Pix of Black Swallowtail, Annual Cicada and Snowberry Clear-winged Moth follow. Continue reading →

Marco Van Brabant writes, regarding Black Skimmers:

What I always wondered was how these birds have the power to run that long lower mandible through the water. I always imagined it causing so much friction that it should be impossible for the bird to zoom it effortlessly through the water.

When we see pictures of these birds looking for their meals, they are usually shot perpendicularly to the path in which they fly. Or when we see pictures of the bird resting, it is almost always also a side view, showing the big red and black bill.

I imagined it to be as wide as it is thick, but I just looked at some pictures I took a while back and realize how it is possible to do it, namely the bill is as thin as a knife and cuts through the water, kinda the same as when you stick you hand out of the car window when driving at high speed: turn the palm of the hand facing the wind and you feel the resistance, turn the palm of the hand down, and there is hardly any resistance left. Bingo, that’s how they do it…

I have some mediocre pictures (because I shot them with a relatively short lens) and one of them shows a little of what I just realized.

(Thanks, Marco!  A few Black Skimmers still being seen…)

We had two nice walks at DeKorte yesterday — with a great turnout, a bit of heat, a look at the Meadowlands Commission’s refurbished Lyndhurst Nature Reserve and Trails, and quite a few butterflies and clear-winged moths.  (Thanks to all who participated!) Full lists of birds and butterflies later in the week.

Our new native plant garden is attracting a few butterflies these days. Can you name the two below?