Here’s something you don’t see every day.  Chris Takacs writes:

Spotted a Painted Lady (?) getting some sun in some fallen phrags by the Carillon on Tuesday morning.

(Thanks, Chris!)

Upon further review, we think the Hackensackian Godwit is a Marbled Godwit…  Any thoughts?  And it is still at DeKorte — around low tide. Out the Transco Trail toward the end along the mud.

More on Marbled Godwits here.

Ron Shields wrote:

I found this guy on the mudflat off DeKorte’s Transco Trail back near the turnpike on Wednesday afternoon.

A dowitcher???  A godwit??? Any identification would be appreciated.

We are leaning toward Hackensackian Godwit. (As we all know, if it had been a bit closer to a river to the east, we would have gone with Hudsonian Godwit.)  (Thanks, Ron!)

Dennis Cheeseman took this early-morning photo of Alice the Eagle at River Barge Park today.

(We know it is Alice because of the transmitter, visible in the photo.)

(Thanks, Dennis.)

Last week, with the help of LightHawk, we took aerial photographs of several natural areas and parks in the Meadowlands.

The weather was far from cooperative (heavily overcast with a haze that never burned off), but we did get a great feel for how close everything is in the Meadowlands — yet so far away.

In one of the Losen Slote photos below, for example, you can see how close the park is to the Hudson River, but you never realize it when you are at Losen Slote.

More about LightHawk here. They are a great group.