Julie McCall reports: Spent some time out on Disposal Road and at DeKorte Park today, and although it seemed at the time to be quieter than I expected, I still finished off the trip with around 40 species.

With water levels down in the Shorebird Pool in preparation for the
Festival of Birding this weekend, it was much easier than usual to find a Sora – I had one just wander out of the phrags about ten feet in front of me while I was trying to get a better look at a Northern Waterthrush. ull

The bird was seen on the Marsh Discovery Trail (MDT) after the second outdoor classroom.  [See map above.] Soras have been spotted several times lately.

I also saw a good number of Northern Waterthrushes today – at least ten or twelve, along the MDT and near the Lyndhurst NatureReserve. I also had Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Kestrel, Peregrine, and Northern Harrier.

Shorebirds included Dowitchers (Short-billed?), both Yellowlegs, and scattered groups of peeps.  The wind kept a lot of the birds huddled near phrag islands. (Thanks, Julie!)

Full list follows.

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   DeKorte Park is home to the World Trade Center Memorial Cove, next to the NJMC Administration Building and facing a Manhattan skyline that once prominently featured the Twin Towers. 

(Photo at right is from the NJMC archives.)

   The memorial features two wooden piers suggesting the fallen towers. Each pier is composed of 110 boards, each symbolizing a floor of the buildings.

Nearby, a steel silhouette of the pre-9/11 skyline recalls the view before the attacks. 

A plaque with the follwoing quote accompanies the memorial:

"In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing." — Robert Ingersoll.

   Click "Continue reading …" to see a time-lapse photo of the Memorial Cove at night, featured  on the NJMC 2009 40th anniversary calendar.

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The NJMC's Jim Wright is giving a free talk and slide show, The Birds and Critters of the Meadowlands" — including the Monk Parakeets of Rudgefield –  tonight at 7:30 p.m. the Real Macaw Parrot Club in Paramus.

The public is invited. The club meets at Paramus VFW Hall, 6 Winslow Court, Paramus, across from Ikea on Rte 17.

Ray Duffy reports: "I was scouting Mill Creek Marsh for the Meadowlands Birding Festival on Saturday.  While passing the first fork along the paths, I came across a sparrow I am very confident was a Clay-colored Sparrow. 

"It was by a Song Sparrow and the color difference were very clear.  It had a well defined milar and a very obvious gray patch on the back of the neck.  It got flushed a number of times by joggers but kept in the area.  When I completed my loop it was in the same general area around 7:15 p.m.

Link to a pic is here. (Thanks, Ray!)

Birding at DeKorte will be showcased this Saturday with the Meadowlands Festival of Birding, but as the NJMC's Jim Wright points out in his latest column for The South Bergenite, the benefits of BirdFest could linger past Saturday.

His column is here.

   This Saturday is the big day for the seventh annual Meadowlands of Birding, headquartered at the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission’s DeKorte Park in Lyndhurst.

  It promises to be a great event, with programs ranging from guided bird walks and bird-banding demonstrations to pontoon-boat cruises and butterfly seminars. (To register or get more information, log on to www.HackensackRiverkeeper.org.)

   If, heaven forbid, you don’t have enough time to attend the festival or you’re just a very casual birder, I have a bit of advice. DeKorte the-day-or-so-after ain’t chopped liver either.

   You won’t be able to borrow loaner binoculars or get all those great birding tips from experts, but you will be able to take advantage of a bit of their expertise – just a day or two later.

The rest of the column follows.

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The Meadowlands is a prime destination for foraging egrets that have colonized South Brother Isand in the east River. That fact was underscored in late July when Lorraine Novinski was taking one of her regular bird counts for the Harbor Herons survey.

Lorraine noted a Snowy Egret that had been banded on South Brother. When NYC Audubon heard of the sighting, it sent reseracher Liz Craig (above) to the site to see if she could find the banded Snowy as well.

She did not see the Snowy, but she held up a large antenna and picked up the signal from a Great Egret that had been equipped with miniature radio transmitter at South Brother Island in June. We recorded what the transmitted signal sounds like, for those who are curious. Just run your cursor over the lefthand side of the dark gray bar below.

Recording of Egret w/Transmitter Summer 2010

Sandy Sorkin saw a Sora (albeit a distant one, second from left) this morning on a Phrag island near the beginning of the Marsh Discovery Trail at DeKorte Park.

Below is a map to give you an idea of where it was. They have also been seen at Phrag's edge near the start of the trail. Your results may differ. (Orange line is the MDT, black dot is the trail entrance.)  (Thanks, Sandy!)

For this weekend's Bird Fest, the Meadowlands Commission's Brett Bragin has lowered the water level in the Shorebird Pool at DeKorte Park.

The water level is now a few inches lower than it was for Kevin Karlson Day last month and — barring any heavy rains — it should remain thereabouts through the weekend.

[We have already gotten reports of two Sora sightings this morning from the Marsh Discovery Trail.]

We should get more shorebirds overall but when it is high tide nearby, the new mudflats at the Shorebird Pool should be particularly attractive.

In case you are wondering, high tide Thursday is around 1 p.m. High tide Friday is around 2 p.m. High tide for Bird Fest is around 3 p.m.

A Digiscoping Workshop with photographer Kevin Bolton has been added to the Sunday schedule for this weekend's Meadowlands Festival of Birding.

The workshop will be held at the Mill Creek Marsh in Secaucus from 7:30 a.m. to 11 a.m.

According to Kevin, digiscoping is the joining of a compact digital camera or DSLR to a spotting scope, allowing you to turn your scope into a camera lens and take full-frame still photos and video from a distance.

You can register by calling 201-968-0808; or in person at the Hackensack Riverkeeper booth on Saturday, Sept. 11. Don’t miss it!

TIP: Bring a 2GB SD memory chip to record your workshop photos.

Check out http://jerseydigiscoping.blogspot.com/ for some of Kevin’s work.

As part of a friendly competition among DeKorte Park, the Celery Farm Natural Area in Northwestern Bergen County and a buddy vacationing in Massachusetts, we thought we'd see how species of birds each group would see during an hour on Sunday morning. The other two groups counted from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. but stayed in one place, a la "The Big Sit."

Our DeKorte group covered about a mile later in the morning — from 11 to noon — but did not go much onto the Marsh Discovery Trail.

The Celery Farm crew, known as The Hour on the Tower, tied their all-time record with 41 species. We had 31 species. Massachusetts had 30. Congrats to all. It was fun, and — as one DeKorte participant observed, you become as aware of the birds you should see but don't (like the Snowy Egret) as the ones you do see.

The DeKorte List follows (including, at the end, birds seen before or after the hour).

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