Birds and Other Nature Sightings

 I continued my mid-summer dragonfly and damselfly roundup recently with a trip to the Lakehurst railroad tracks.  Historic Lakehurst, NJ, a small Ocean County town mostly surrounded by Manchester Township, is home to the Naval Air Engineering Center (NAEC).  NAEC is now part of the trio of military bases that make up Joint Base MDL (the other two are McGuire Air Force Base and Fort Dix).  NAEC is unfortunately known for the Hindenburg airship disaster that claimed 36 lives in 1937.  The base is also the largest breeding spot for endangered upland sandpipers in New Jersey.  Local birder groups hold annual organized visits there to see the sandpipers, and these visits require preregistration and background checks to enter the military installation. Last week, however, I a walked the more locally known and much less restricted hotspot.  The trail is the abandoned tracks, running westerly from Union Avenue.  The trail offers a wide path through the pine forest.  In only the mile that I wa

     Until the shorebirds start returning from their northern breeding grounds, Ocean County birding in early July can be monotonous.  So while the shorebirds slowly trickle back, I’ve tried a couple bog spots over the past week hoping to find other non-avian critters.  A friend introduced me to Webb’s Mill Bog last week.  The bog is part of the Greenwood Wildlife Management Area in either Lacey Township or Manchester Township (depending on which website you visit).  The bog trail is a raised boardwalk only about a quarter mile long, however it is only accessible from the side of the road along a county highway.  I made two trips there and one to the cranberry bogs in Berkeley Township, which is also only accessible from the side of the road along a county highway. Webb’s Mill Bog is a known place for Pine Barrens treefrogs and some rare, endangered or vulnerable plant species.  On the first trip there, my hope was to see a Pine Barrens treefrog, but I knew that would be a difficult ta

 Friday, I went over to the Toms River Veterans Complex to walk the power line cut trail behind the back parking lot.  It was a hot summer day so birds were not the primary focus of the walk.  It’s a good habitat with native plants and weeds, grasses, woods and ephemeral pools.  My friends Doug and Chelsea brought this location to my attention a year or two ago. I only managed a little over an hour there as the persistent sweat running into my eyes became unmanageable.  I had about a little over a dozen bird species.  Several field sparrows were singing.  A yellow-billed cuckoo was calling.  A pair of red-tailed hawks were perched on one of the power line towers.  There was plenty of other summertime wildlife though.  A mini herd of deer grunted at me before trotting away through the woods.  I spotted a small frog, a small snapper turtle and a very tiny Fowler's toad.  But the insects highlighted my stroll. Left, a Fowler’s toad, about the size of my thumbnail.   © S. Weiss Right,