Don's Jersey Birding: The Meadowlands get better with age


Great egret in Sawmill Creek Wildlife Refuge.
Photo by Melanie Worob

by Don Torino

Those of us involved in the environmental movement learn very quickly that the fight will never end.  Your life goes from one battle to another, one issue into the next.  Sometimes it all seems gloom and doom: global warming, pollution, habitat destruction - it goes on and on.

But sometimes, once in a great while, it does get better.  The New Jersey Meadowlands is one of those things.  Not only has the Meadowlands improved environmentally, but it has become an amazing place to visit.  The Meadowlands is now one of the top birding areas, not only in the state but in the country.

How do I know this?

Phragmites thrives in the Meadowlands.
Photo credit: David Wheeler

While other kids were out playing Little League or hanging out at the street corner, I was out exploring, trapping muskrats, and watching birds in the Meadowlands.  My family moved to the area when I was 12 years old.  It was a different kind of place to grow up, much different than the rest of Bergen County.  We were in our own world, a small wilderness in the middle of suburbia.  As much as I like to reminisce about the "good old days," I know that these are much better days for the Meadowlands and the wildlife that now thrives there.

The abuse heaped upon the Meadowlands by the hand of man in decades past included some of the worst things that man can do to the environment.  Yet it is only when you consider that tragic part of history that you realize what an amazing success story the New Jersey Meadowlands truly is.

Captain Bill Sheehan of the Hackensack Riverkeeper.
Photo by David Wheeler

Thanks to the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission and advocates like Captain Bill Sheehan the Hackensack Riverkeeper, the Meadowlands now boasts more than 260 species of birds.  We now  have nesting peregrine falcons and osprey, birds that have not nested in the area in my lifetime.  Within the 19,500 acres of the Meadowlands, at least 35 threatened or endangered species of birds can be sighted at various times of the year, including the Cooper's hawk, northern harrier, American kestrel, yellow-crowned night-heron, American bobolink, and savannah sparrow.  This winter brings green-winged teal and other waterfowl, as well as raptors and gulls.  The warmth of spring brings shorebirds and tree swallows.  Summer offers wading birds & songbirds, while fall brings neotropical migrants and returning waterfowl.

Black-crowned night-heron in the Meadowlands near NJ Turnpike overpass.
Photo credit: Melanie Worob

The New Jersey Meadowlands Commission has also restored places that were slated for development and turned them into critical wildlife habitat, such as DeKorte Park, Mill Creek Marsh Trail, Harrier Meadow...and the list goes on.

I am very fortunate that I now get to introduce people to the Meadowlands by volunteering my time leading birding trips for Bergen County Audubon Society and the Meadowlands Commission.  Nothing gives me more joy than when I can show someone who has never visited the area their first great egret   or watch their faces as an osprey catches a fish right in front of them.

I never forget what it once was, what could have happened and what an amazing place it is now.  Sometimes things do get better!

A peregrine falcon sits on the Route 3 bridge over the Hackensack River.
Photo credit: Dana Patterson

The sun sets over the Meadowlands.
Photo credit: David Wheeler

David Wheeler contributed additional reporting to this story.

Previous exclusives by Don Torino:
Previous Meadowlands Exclusives:
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Posted by WILDNEWJERSEY at 11/23/2010 12:30 PM
Categories: Don's Jersey Birding
 

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