Louis Balboa reports:

I was on Disposal Road Saturday, freezing my tail off, and just before leaving I saw this guy.

(Thanks, Louis!)

For our final Tuesday Teaser-palooza from NJMC Naturalist Mike Newhouse’s banding station near Harrier Meadow, we give you perhaps our toughest Tuesday Teaser ever (which means it’s probably not an American Goldfinch). Heck, a Teaser-palooza or two has stumped us.

Please e-mail your answer to jim.wright@njmeadowlands.gov.

Thanks to all who graciously competed.

More on the Teaser-palooza can be found here.

Ray Gilbert writes:

Immature Northern Goshawk 11/24/13 disposal rd. 1:00 pm.

It was flushed out of a tree on the Kingsland landfill by two Northern Harriers and then circled up and headed south.

Thanks, Ray!

DeKorte Park in Lyndhurst will be closed on Thanksgiving. River Barge Park in Carlstadt will be open. Enjoy the holiday.

Each Monday, we post the upcoming events for the Meadowlands Commission and the Meadowlands Environment Center  through the upcoming weekend.

This week’s events are:

* A talk and slide show about the NJMC’s coffee-table book “The Nature of the Meadowlands in Rutherford on Tuesday.

* A talk and slide show about the Schuyler Copper Mine in North Arlington (at the Meadowlands Environment Center).

* A “Green Friday” free guided walk at DeKorte Park.

* A raptor talk and walk in DeKorte Park and a bonus program about Losen Slote Park.

Details follow. Continue reading →

“Sunset Mike” Maddaloni has been at it again. Here’s a selection of pix from DeKorte Park earlier this month. (Thanks, Mike!)

The repaving work on Valley Brook Avenue in Lyndhurst has been completed, and access to DeKorte Park  from the roadway has been restored. Sorry for any inconvenience.

When NJMC Emeritus Don Smith stopped by our offices with the Sora to be banded, he mentioned he had seen a Goshawk in Carlstadt along Washington Avenue last weekend. He stopped by again yesterday with the one distant photo he got — above.

This is an exceptional sighting for the Meadowlands. (Thanks, Don!)

NJMC Naturalist Mike Newhouse reports that a Hudsonian Godwit with an injured leg was seen at Sagg Pond, Suffolk County, Long Island, yesterday morning — most likely the same bird that was seen for more than two weeks in Mill Creek Marsh this month.

And Dennis Cheeseman passed along a photo he took of the bird in flight at Mill Creek earlier this month — above. (Thanks, Mike and Dennis.)

Here’s something you don’t see every day — a Sora making an office visit.

Don Smith, Naturalist Emeritus for the Meadowlands Commission, found a Sora in a bit of distress in a Meadowlands marsh and thought he would make a quick stop at the NJMC’s offices so bird-bander extraordinaire Mike Newhouse could band the bird before Don released it in Harrier Meadow. Which Mike and Don did, nimbly and ably as ever.

We have not had this big a celebrity in the building since Governor Kean visited a year ago, and NFL Legend Dan Marino stopped by several years back. The Sora, of course, was a bit lower in the pecking order.