New Jersey Newsroom: New York Harbor is on the mend
A great egret flies low over the restored marsh.
Photo Credit: Dana Patterson
Bluefish and bunker break the surface of the tidal creek surging out of the marsh, twisting and turning in a food-chain frenzy. One fish finds a different fate. An osprey's mighty talons whisk the fish to a tree branch just across the saltmarsh from us. Further down the branch sits another osprey, its jagged six-foot wingspan at rest for the moment. A third osprey surveys the marsh from a post a few feet below the others.
I have never seen three ospreys on a single tree before, a family quite like this. These beautiful raptors are endangered. After widespread usage of the pesticide DDT weakened their eggshells past the breaking point, they were nearly gone from the metropolitan area by the 1970's. Yet what transfers this impressive sighting into something downright mind-boggling is that this marsh and these waters of Gerritsen Creek may be overcoming even longer odds than the osprey.
Posted by WILDNEWJERSEY at 2/1/2011 11:00 AM 
Categories: Wildlife
Tags: New YorkNew Jersey Harbor Gerritsen Creek salt marshes habitat restoration Wildlife Bird species
Categories: Wildlife
Tags: New YorkNew Jersey Harbor Gerritsen Creek salt marshes habitat restoration Wildlife Bird species
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