Thinking of visiting DeKorte Park or nearby Disposal Road this weekend?
To see what’s being reported at DeKorte on eBird Hotspot Explorer, click here. (Above, mystery goose on nearby landfill on Friday afternoon.)
To see what’s being reported along Disposal Road on eBird Hotspot Explorer, click here.
A quick list of what one birder saw at DeKorte on Friday afternoon follows. Continue reading
Just sayin’. He’ll grow out of it…
Seen in a local natural area this a.m.
Jim Wright, who keeps this blog for the NJMC, also writes a monthly column for the South Bergenite. His latest is on the legendary pelican that has now been at DeKorte for at least 97 days. If George sets sail on Columbus Day, it will be Day 100.
How rare can a bird be if people have been coming to DeKorte Park to see it daily for three months?
That’s how long folks have been viewing an American white pelican on the park’s Saw Mill Creek mudflats. In fact, it’s a safe bet that hundreds of birders who live within 50 miles of here — including many who need this species for their life list — have made at least one pelican pilgrimage to the Meadowlands.
According to eBird.org, the go-to website for bird-watchers, an American white pelican “is rare for this date and location.” Yet this huge white bird with black wing tips, usually seen out West or along the Gulf Coast, has become such a familiar sight that it even has acquired a name — “George” (after the famous crime novelist George Pelecanos) — and a contest.
By late August, when I briefly mentioned the pelican in a column for this paper, the bird had stayed here so long that the N.J. Meadowlands Commission started a competition to see who could correctly guess when George will leave. Continue reading
Bird-bander Chris Takacs saw this cool dude on one of the mist-net poles earlier this week.
We are guessing that it’s not this large in real life (unless you are viewing this on a cellphone).
I.D. help would be appreciated. (Thanks, Chris!)