Bergen County Audubon Society president Don Torino looks for birds at DeKorte Park in Lyndhurst. 1/21/14 (John O’Boyle/The Star-Ledger)

Star-Ledger Columnist Mark DiIonno wrote a nifty column for The Star-Ledger for Super Bowl Sunday.

Here’s a sample:

Before the 900 buses spew diesel fumes in the standstill of Route 3 and the Turnpike, before the packed NJ Transit trains scream through the marshes, before 85,000 fans move like an ice-chunked river through the security checkpoints, before the mayhem, bedlam and overblownness of Super Bowl Sunday, there will be a few hours of tranquil, reflective quiet in the New Jersey Meadowlands today.

It’s a bird-watching tour called “Super Bird Sunday” at Losen Slote Creek Park. The creek is a tributary of the Hackensack River, and with a few strokes of a canoe or kayak paddle from there, you can see MetLife Stadium rise above the placid waterways and tall marsh weeds.

This is no Jersey joke.

“This is the only place I’ve seen where nature has improved in my lifetime,” said Don Torino, the president of the Bergen County Audubon Society who will lead today’s walk. “This went from a place filled with garbage and horrible stuff floating in the water, to one of the best, if not the best, urban wildlife centers in the country.”

So you won’t read any Jimmy Hoffa jokes here, or any lines about mob drop-offs in 55-gallon drums. And you won’t read the word “swamp,” beyond this one time. The New Jersey Meadowlands deserve better.

Link is here.