Ray Duffy reports:
I had 3 drake Redheads around 845am at Dekorte Park in the Saw Mill Creek impoundment. I didn’t have my scope and it was snowing so I’m not sure if they were associating with female redheads, but I saw the red on the head and the blue bill.
(Thanks, Ray!)
On a visit to Laurel Hill this afternoon, we came across a flock of 50 Horned Larks in the open field 
just to the north of the park.
We saw them flying, and then pointed the camera in the general vicinity of where they landed (The question is, how many Horned Larks are in the photo above?
Next week, we plan to post an update on the Laurel Hill Common ravens and a photo of a Peregrine perched in a bit of an unusual place.
Photo of Horned larks in flight follows. Answer to the “How many” question Monday. Continue reading
Don Torino captured the Winter Wonderland that is Losen Slote Creek Park in Little Ferry these days — a study in black and white.
Our next free guided walk is Tuesday, Dec. 17, at 10 a.m. in DeKorte Park in Lyndhurst. This is our last walk of 2013.
A big thank you to everyone who participated in one of our-nature-related events this year.
Full details on the walk follow. Continue reading
Fred Nisenholz writes:
Male (above) and female (below) Northern Harrier photographed on Wednesday afternoon on Disposal Road. He is carrying something, but I couldn’t tell what it is.
Jim Wright, who keeps this blog for the Meadowlands Commission, writes a twice-monthly nature blog for the South Bergenite. His latest is on the upcoming 114th annual Christmas Bird Count. You can read it here:
This Sunday, I will awaken long before dawn so I can join a few fellow bird-watchers as they roam the wilds of Kearny, North Arlington, Lyndhurst, Rutherford, East Rutherford and Carlstadt to see how many birds we can find in a span of roughly 12 hours.
Folks who would rather be shopping at a mall or watching the NFL in their den may find this a dreadful way to spend a December Sunday, but there are few places I’d rather be than touring the Meadowlands in search of birds both rare and common.
This will be my fifth Christmas Bird Count (CBC) with New Jersey Meadowlands Commission naturalist Mike Newhouse in the past six years. We have found that it’s a great way to visit our favorite parks and natural areas as well as a former landfill or two — which can be great spots to see winter migrants not found elsewhere in the region.
Our “target” birds include rough-legged hawks, short-eared owls, snow buntings and horned larks, but most of all we’ll be looking for a snowy owl. There have been a couple of brief sightings of this charismatic bird in the Meadowlands already this season, and we have never seen one on a count here. Continue reading
The plant in yesterday’s Losen Slote Creek Park Tuesday Teaser-o-rama is White Meadowsweet, a native plant.
More on White Meadowsweet here.
Marco van Brabant writes:
Here are a few photos from last week. A blanket of snow will change the landscape of our beloved Meadowlands, but not as much as fog, which turns it into a different planet.
I find it a most awesome experience how it turns an area we know so well into isolated scenes.
(Thanks, Marco!)
Welcome to the second in a series of Tuesday Teaser’s devoted to Losen Slote Creek Park, the site of our fifth annual Super Bird Sunday Walk on Feb. 2.
Between now and then, we will offer a different Losen Slote-based Teaser presented by the Bergen County Audubon Society.
To participate, just e-mail your answer to the Teaser each week to Jim Wright at jim.wright@njmeadowlands.gov by each Tuesday at midnight, with “Teaser” marked in the subject field. The person with the highest number of correct answers will win something or other.
Today’s Teaser is pictured at right. What is it?
MITSU YASUKAWA / RECORD STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The Record had a nifty story by Staff Writer Minjae Park about the history of the Meadowlands, told through maps, and a talk on the subject by Frank Gerard Godlewski, a local historian and former Meadowlands Museum trustee.
A link is here.