BCAS is leading a guided walk of Losen Slote Creek Park in Little Ferry on Tuesday Nov. 17 from 10 am to noon. We’ll look for sparrows, late fall migrants and other birds of interest.
For more on Losen Slote, check out Don Torino’s column below
The Sweetgums, White Oaks and Sassafras trees are turning the crimsons, golds and yellows of fall. The ferns still stand at attention on the forest floor as they did in the ancient woodlands of the past. A Hairy Woodpecker suddenly clings to a tree right over your head and a Red-Tailed Hawk watches your every move from its noble perch. You are in Losen Slote Park in Little Ferry, one of the last stands of hardwood lowland forest in the Meadowlands and one of the most beautiful and unique places in the Meadowlands, especially in fall.
The Losen Slote (Dutch word for winding Creek) is a 22-acre hidden gem in an otherwise congested part of Bergen County, a unique lowland forest habitat where you are transformed to another time where the Muskrat, Box Turtle and Red Fox still roam. Where the Wood Duck and Hooded Mergansers are framed by the surrounding Gray Birch trees now full of goldfinch and eagerly await Pine Siskins and Redpolls of winter. This is where the Fox Sparrows and Carolina Wrens spend many of their autumn days and the Coopers and Sharp-shinned hawks and even the Barred Owl hunt like they have for thousands of years.