Things are changing in the Meadowlands. Despite the oppressive heat of the last few weeks and what it may say on your calendar summer has gone. Nature has no date book, apps or IPhones. Rather, it prepares as it has done for eons despite our best efforts to take one more visit to the beach and have another barbeque.
Now, the Semipalmated Sandpipers are congregating by the thousands on the mudflats of the Meadowlands, resting and refueling for their incredible journey that began in the Arctic and will end in South America. The Yellow-legs, Egrets and Plovers can also be seen now, meeting together, and well aware that summer in the Meadowlands is rapidly leaving us behind. The last generation of Monarch butterflies, although far less than years past, are flying high over the marshes on their long arduous journey to Mexico. More Warblers are arriving by the day but their visit will be short as the days go by, and the Orioles will not be seen much longer as fall slowly but assuredly arrives.