Photographed by Dennis Cheeseman at noon today.  (Thanks, Dennis!)

Marco Van Brabant reports (from DeKorte Park last week):

During lunch and after work, back to the Butterfly epicenter.

Shoot from the hip and get pictures.

(Thanks, Marco!)

This is Day 53 of the American White Pelican’s visit. It was flying around the Hudson County end of the Saw Mill Creek mudflats just before 8 a.m.

On July 27, Ray Duffy reported (and photographed) a leg-flagged Semipalmated Sandpiper at Mill Creek Marsh and reported it the USGS.

Last week he heard back from the USGS. Ray writes:

KE2, the banded Semipalmated Sandpiper, was banded on 4/5/2012 in Suriname in South America at in a lagoon near the Warappa  (LAT: 5.99139; LON: -54.91361).

The bird is thought to have been hatched in 2010 or before that.  Its gender is unknown.   Ironically, the bander was someone from Cape May, NJ.

(Thanks, Ray!)

In case you are wondering, Suriname is in northern South America, east of Venezuela, roughly 2,800 miles away. 

If this sounds a tad familiar… Chris Takacs had a similar sighting four years ago of a bird banded in French Guiana, which is right next to Suriname. Link is here.

That’s what happens when you have a black-and-white and a flicker.

Dennis Cheeseman took these shots at DeKorte last week.

(Thanks, Dennis!)

The current edition of the South Bergenite has a cool story on the differences between moths and butterflies, with an emphasis on this summer’s Moth Night and Butterfly Day in the Meadowlands.

The link is here.

“Bald Eagles in the Meadowlands & Beyond” is a new free e-book brought to you by the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission and Conserve Wildlife Foundation. The official e-publication date is Sept. 10, with a launch event on Sept. 17 at 8 p.m. at the Environment Center in DeKorte Park.

The crowd-sourced project features amazing images by 19 nature photographers, as well as chapters on the Bald Eagle’s amazing recovery in the region, the state and nationwide.

Contributing authors include raptor expert Scott Weidensaul and Kathy Clark of the N.J. Endangered and Nongame Species Program. CWF’s David Wheeler wrote the foreword.

Readers of this blog can now download a free copy of the e-book at the link below – it is a pdf with a page-turning function so you can view it easily on your computer by clicking the lower right-hand corner of the pdf. If you open the link on your iPad or Kindle, you should be able to view it on your device at the click of a button. The link to the e-book is here.

More info on the book, including a list of the contributing photographers, is here.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Meadowlands Commission is ordering several copies for whoever wants to buy a hard-cover or soft-cover book at cost – including followers of the Meadowlands Nature Blog.

By ordering together, we should be able to get a discount that will cover shipping and sale. Figure a bit under $45 for the hard cover and a bit under $35 for a soft cover  (it is a high-quality print-on-demand publisher).

By ordering soon, we’ll get the books before the Sept. 17 event.   If you want to order through the commission, please e-mail Jim Wright (jim.wright (at) njmeadowlands.gov) asap and let him how many copies you want and whether you want hard-cover or soft-cover.

To see the hard-cover book on the print-on-demand publisher’s website,  click here.

To see the soft-cover book on the print-on-demand publisher’s website,  click here.

And, as we mentioned, the book is available free as an e-book.

Our next free walk is Sunday, Sept. 7, at 10 a.m. DeKorte Park, and it features a special football theme  — and nifty prizes.

We’ll walk around parts of the park, looking for shorebirds, raptors and other birds, and we’re offering prizes to the first people who see  any bird species with the same name as a pro-football team: Cardinal, Raven, Falcon, Eagle, Seahawk (osprey), Giant (great) egret  and Giant (great) blue heron. All seven team bird species can be seen in the park.

The walk is run by the N.J. Meadowlands Commission and the Bergen County Audubon Society. Check meadowblog.net for last-minute weather updates. You will have to sign a standard liability release that is good for NJMC/BCAS events throughout the year. To rsvp, contact Don Torino of the BCAS at greatauk4@aol.com or 201-230-4983.

We saw the American White Pelican again this morning. Yes, that’s Day 51 and counting.

In the contest to win a free pontoon boat ride for two, just three of the more than 30 folks who entered have been eliminated.