Many thanks to Mickey Raine for this great variety of pics taken recently at Mill Creek Point Park in Secaucus. Egrets above, Forster’s Terns below, an awesome pre-sunset shot and a look at some of the playground activities that make the park a great place to bring the kids!

This past Saturday Spencer Lecky from Palisades Park Troop 379 and his fellow Scouts created a new Butterfly Garden at DeKorte Park and refurbished and stained four deteriorating park benches as part of Spencer’s Eagle Scout project. Thank you Spencer and your Troop members from the NJSEA for a tremendous job well done!

To create the Butterfly Garden, the Troop installed a rock border and weeded the area adjacent to a recently planted pollinator garden. They added a fresh coat of top soil and planted Asclepias incarnata, Swamp milkweed. Swamp milkweed is vital for butterflies like the Monarch, which is in serious decline.

Monarchs cannot survive without milkweed; their caterpillars only eat milkweed plants. Adding milkweed to the garden ensures a food supply for the life cycle of a Monarch as well as other pollinators.