We had an invigorating First-Sunday-of-the-Month walk at Laurel Hill County Park in Secaucus, with 25 of us enjoying a brisk
change in seasons.

Highlights included a Peregrine, an Osprey w/fish (right) and three Ospreys total, a Brant and plenty of great looks at Golden-shafted Flickers.

We will post a full list (sort of) later in the week. On behalf of the Meadowlands Commission and the Bergen County Audubon Society, we'd like to say thanks to all who participated. 

Next walk is Tuesday, Oct. 19, at 10 a.m. at DeKorte Park in Lyndhurst. We all have a bonus walk on Sunday, Oct. 24, at 10 a.m. at Mill Creek Marsh — a beautiful time of year to be there.

The Art Association of Rutherford’s 63rd Anniversary Open-Juried Art and Photography Exhibit will be on display at the NJMC Flyway Gallery during October.

The show runs today, Monday, Oct. 4, through Friday, Oct. 29.

An awards reception is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 9 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

The environmentally-themed exhibit includes nature and wildlife photography as well as oils, watercolors, pastels, and drawings of  seascapes and landscapes.

More info and two more images follow.

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Ron Shields filed this report just before last week's deluge:

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  NJMC Naturalist Mike Newhouse has compiled the bird-banding statistics for September. He and his band of banders banded 52 species and 551 birds total. New species for the three-year project were Scarlet Tanager, Great Crested Flycatcher (above) and Acadian Flycatcher.

Full list follows. Asterisk denotes threatened, enadangered or special-concern species in New Jersey (5 total).

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The William D. McDowell Observatory in  DeKorte Park begins a new schedule of programming on Wednesday night with free public access at 8 and 10 p.m. — weather permitting, of course.

Dress for the weather; with the dome open, you are basically outside.

Each evening two major objects in the night sky will be viewed, plus one or two other celestial objects or events depending on the observing conditions.

Ron Shields sent in an additional Tuesday Teaser photo, along with the comment that the turtle was the size of a dinner plate.

That prompted NJMC Naturalist Brett Bragin to say: "If that turtle was the size of a dinner plate, it must have been a slider (not native to N.J.)"

(Thanks, Ron and Brett!)

 To give you an idea of what you might see in the Meadowlands in the coming month, we thought we'd post a sample of the highlights from October 2009.

   October 1: Bald Eagle

   October 6: Oyster Toadfish

   October 9: Yellow Bear Caterpillar

   October 15: ?

   October 22: Grasshopper Afternoons

   October 23, Mehrhof Pond, Late October

   October 23: 40th Anniversary Slide Show

   October 26: Great Blue

  October 28: Secaucus Marshes Aerial Photography

We hope that today is a preview of the weekend, because it is a beautiful 
early autumn day.

On the Marsh Discovery Trail we had Osprey w/fish, soaring Redtail, a few peeps, many yellowlegs, egrets, No. Shovelers and Gadwall.

In the butterfly dept., we had Monarch, Orange Sulphur, Cabbage White, and a very bedraggled Common Buckeye.

In nearby Harrier Meadow earlier in the morning, we had a pair of soaring Northern Harriers and some Laughing Gulls in addition to the usual suspects

Save the date: Monday, Dec. 6. That's when prize-winning nature author Scott Weidensaul will give a free talk, “Against All Odds – Miracles of Bird Migration,” in DeKorte Park, Lyndhurst.

The talk, hosted by N.J. MC and sponsored by the Bergen County Audubon Society, will take place at 7:30 p.m. in the Meadowlands Environment Center auditorium.

Weidensaul is the author of more than two dozen books on natural history, including the Pulitzer Prize-nominated “Living on the Wind,” about bird migration.

His talk will explore the wonder and mechanics of migration, and the simple ways that humans can help at a time when the populations of many migratory birds are in drastic decline.

Ron Shields photographed this Tuesday Turtle Teaser recently in the Kearny Marsh, and wants to know what kind of turtle it is….

Our answer follows.  (Thanks, Ron!)

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