Repairs are progressing well on the hurricane-damaged Marsh Discovery Trail. We thought we’d pass along some photos — no timetable yet, but we hope to reopen the trail by fall. Very exciting news.
NJMC Naturalist Mike Newhouse reports a Little Blue Heron (immature, white feathers) on the Saw Mill Creek mudflats, in fairly close. Am. White Pelican still present, but in the distance.
Tide is going out, so we are hoping it’s here for a while.
More on Little Blue Herons here. (Is that a Pipefish that it caught?)
(Thanks, Mike!)
Jim Wright, who keeps this blog for the Meadowlands Commission, also writes a twice-monthly nature column for the South Bergenite.
His latest is on this Sunday’s Butterfly Day at DeKorte Park:
How time flies. This Sunday is the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission’s Fifth Annual Butterfly Day in DeKorte Park. It seems like only yesterday we were leading our very first butterfly walk here (it was actually July 2009).
This year, we are aiming to make Butterfly Day the best yet, with all sorts of events and attractions for the whole family, from a nature walk and author talks to scavenger hunts and a butterfly costume contest.
The event runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and everything is free. No wonder more than 600 people attended Butterfly Day last year.
The top attraction, of course, is the butterflies themselves. Although we can’t predict how many we might see that day — they are maddeningly unpredictable — we have already spotted a dozen species at DeKorte this summer, plus several mesmerizing clear-winged moths that resemble miniature hummingbirds.