Hello Readers!
The New Jersey Blog has moved! We've combined all of the Natural Lands Trust preserve blogs into one, so any new posts will be made there. You can find that blog here.
We hope that you'll follow us to the new blog--it'll have everything that this blog has (including an archive of all the entries made on this blog), plus plenty of other interesting posts by the other preserve managers.
(Please note that this weblog will no longer be updated.)
These two photos, taken through aquarium glass, are of two fish species native
to the acidic streams and lakes of South Jersey. The blackbanded sunfish (left) generally only grows to a length of 3", while the bluespotted sunfish (right) is, comparatively, a giant, growing to almost 4".
These are two of the aquatic life species that NLT has brought to the 3rd graders at Millville's Silver Run School for study. The students keep representatives of each species in their classroom for about a week, examine species behavior as they live in a 20 gallon tank, research them on the internet, post the research results on the blackboard.
So far this year, the students have studied a number of saltwater species: ribbed mussels (that soon filtered the tank's water so that it was crystal clear), sea anemones, mummichogs, shrimp, three-spine sticklebacks, and striped killifish. Now the students are moving on to freshwater species: a couple dozen Asiatic clams, blackbanded and bluespotted sunfish, pickeral, eastern mudminnows, eels, various species of caddisfly larvaw in their custom-built homes, banded killifish, tadpoles, leeches (a big hit), carnivorous bladderworts, and tubifex worms.
In addition to the short in-class presentations adn aquatic life studies, the students have also visited Raybins Beach at NLT's Glades Wildlife Refuge to study the beach at low tide, and they will spend a day at the Peek Preserve and an afternoon at Millville's Union Lake. This program is not only teaching the students at aquatic life in New Jersey, but also their teachers and NLT staff, since nothing stimulates the educational experience more than constantly having to find the right answers to questions from 3rd graders!
Every winter, the skies above Cumberland County fill with Bald Eagles, Red Tailed Hawks, and other raptors on their yearly migration. It is a spectacular sight to see...especially if you're with someone who knows what they're looking for, and has a good spotting scope!
On Saturday, February 3, Cumberland County will be hosting a Winter Eagle Festival. Volunteers from New Jersey Audubon and Citizens United to Save the Maurice River will be set up at four different sites in or near Natural Lands Trust's Glades Wildlife Refuge, ready to help visitors spot and identify raptors.
Between rounds of bird watching, you can stop by the Mauricetown Fire Hall to warm up, get some lunch, view the displays of local non-profits and vendors (be sure to stop by NLT's table and say hi!), and hear speakers. Lecture times, speakers, and topics are as follows:
10am: Kathy Clark of NJENSP, "Eagle Recovery and Rehabilitation"
11am: Jason Guerard of Cape May Bird Observatory (CMBO), "How to Get Started Birdwatching"
1pm: Don Freiday of CMBO, "Owls and How to Find Them"
2pm: Pat and Clay Sutton of CMBO, "Birds and Birding at Cape May"
3pm: Pete Dunne of CMBO, "25 Things That Changed Birding"
There is an admission fee of $10 for adults and $5 for children 12 and under, payable at the door of the firehouse. For more information, call 1(856)453-2177 or 1(866)966-MORE.
We hope to see you there!
In New Jersey there are lots of ticks, chiggers, knats, greenheads and deerflies but the insectlike So here's another reason to visit the New Jersey preserves: to see these beautiful colorful creatures in their natural environment, which often is the woodpiles and debris left by humans in rural and wooded areas.
critter often most worrisome is the black widow spider. This photo was taken 10 feet from the front porch of the Peek Preserve field office. Two of these black widows were under a log, and there are lots more around the fence posts and other scattered timbers. The Glades Refuge also has many of these spiders; I once counted more than a dozen while cleaning up a bunch of tires from a newly-purchased property. While their bite rarely kills people, it sure can be painful and causes some unusual reactions.
Naturalist Jim Dowdell was doing his periodic butterfly inventory at the Burden Hill Preserve when he noticed this butterfly not taking off like the others. Looking more closely (you can click on the image to see a bigger version), he noticed that it was in the grip of a yellow flower spider, also known as a crab spider. These spiders sometimes sew petals together and hide under them in wait for prey. And they--like this specimen--are sometimes camouflaged the same color as their host flower.
Throughout the school year, students from a number of schools go on field trips to Natural Lands Trust Preserves and other natural places as a part of our "Sense of Place" Program. This program is designed to expose kids to protected lands in their area and introduce them to environmental science. Many of these trips involve canoing or kayaking on local lakes and streams, and teach the kids about the creatures living in these bodies of water.
Sometimes, though, more abstract lessons can be taught with a canoe. This picture shows students and teachers taking a break from their study of the river to test the carrying capacity of a 16-foot canoe. They got as many as seven in the boat at one point, though it became increasingly unstable with anything more than two adults, as is seen in this next picture.
This experiment with the canoe might be seen as a metaphor for the dilemma that we face with our nature preserves: What is the human carrying capacity of a preserve? Over what number of visitors does the preserve become increasingly unstable and difficult to maintain, and at what point does it simply sink as a preserve and become a human amusement park? These are questions that we ponder and struggle with at Natural Lands Trust.
After sinking the canoe, the students learned the Boy Scout "airplane" technique for emptying and refloating a sunk canoe in the middle of a lake without bringing it to shore. Although a preserve can't easily dump all its visitors and refloat itself as a nature preserve, there are things that we can do to help prevent it from "sinking" in the first place, such as containing human visitors to trails and other designated areas. It's not a complete answer to the question, but it's a start.
Many land protection deals are complex, and can take months or years to complete. The protection of Bear Swamp West, which took 25 years, is one of the longest efforts Natural Lands Trust has undertaken. But it was well worth the effort.
Bear Swamp West first came to our attention in 1981, when Dr. Stevens Heckscher, NLT's ecologist, stumbled across a letter from a man who lived near Bear Swamp and recommended it for protection. After visiting the swamp, Dr. Heckscher recognized what an important piece of land it was, as it contained some of the last remaining old growth forests in the Mid-Atlantic region. Years of research and negotiating with the land owner and the state followed this "discovery", and in June of 2005, Natural Lands Trust finally closed on the purchase of Bear Swamp West.
Last Sunday, a group of Natural Lands Trust members got the chance to visit the old growth area with New Jersey Manager Steve Eisenhauer. The edge of the forest is bordered by a lake created when groundwater filled in the pit created by the sand mining that once occurred in this area. From the edge of the lake, you can look towards the forest, and see the old growth trees towering above the rest of the forest, sometimes by as much as 30 to 50 feet. 
Some of these trees--mostly sour gum, sweet gum, and tulip poplar--seem small compared to the old growth redwoods of the west coast, but they are huge compared to other trees of their species, and are estimated to be more than 400 years old. (They can't be dated with certainty since most are hollow, rendering tree cores ineffective.)
And as if it weren't exciting enough to see trees that pre-date the European arrival in the Americas, a number of Bald Eagles showed up as well! At one point we counted nine Eagles on the shoreline across the mining pit from us. The Eagles were too far away to photograph, so here's a picture of everyone on the hike lined up with binoculars to look at them!
On Saturday, February 4, Cumberland County, NJ will be hosting its annual Winter Eagle Festival. (Formerly known as the Raptor Festival.) This is a great chance to see Hawks, Vultures, and Eagles, and there are plenty of knowledgeable volunteers around to you spot and indentify them.
The Festival will start with a 7am Sunrise Walk at Turkey Point, lead by NJ Audubon's Pete Dunne. Various viewing sites will be staffed by the NJ Audubon Society and Cape May Bird Observatory from 10am to 5pm. At 5pm, Pat Sutton will lead a Sunset Owl Watch at Turkey Point. There will also be exhibits, lectures, and food in the Mauricetown Fire Hall from 8am to 4pm. Natural Lands Trust will be one of the exhibitor - be sure to stop by and say hello! Lecture topics include: "Endangered and Nongame Species Program," "The Crucible of Migration," "Identifying 'em Far, Far Away," "How to Spot an Owl," and "Raptors of the Bayshore."
The cost of admission is $10 for adults and $5 for children 12 and under. For more information about the Festival, or for directions, call 856-453-2177.
Yesterday and today are "Raptor Discovery Days" at Peek Preserve. As a part of the Cumberland County Winter Eagle Festival, nearly 400 school children will visit the preserve over these two days to hike the trails, learn more about raptors, and to see some of these magnificent birds for themselves. Students also visit the Mauricetown Fire Hall to complete various raptor-themed activities.
At Peek Preserve, students are lead on hikes around the preserve by volunteers from Citizens United to Save the Maurice River. On one hike yesterday, the students were treated to a spectacular view of a Bald Eagle flying close by as he headed up the river to hunt. All of the students also had the chance to use viewing scopes to see an Eagle that was sitting in a tree across the wild rice marsh from the observation deck for most of the morning and part of the afternoon.
Thanks to all the volunteers who helped make these "Raptor Discovery Days" possible.
About a year ago, beaver moved from an adjacent landowner's property to a pond on Natural Lands Trust's Burden Hill Preserve. They raised the water level a couple of feet by damming the pond's small waterfall and built themselves a nice lodge along the pond's edge. They have felled many trees (including this one that held an NLT sign!) for lodge and dam construction, and to more easily eat the tasty bark.
Some trees are girdled rather than felled completely. White oak trees seem to be especially tasty; they have completely girdled a number of oaks up to two feet in diameter or more. 
In this photo, Liz Eisenhauer (daughter of New Jersey Manager Steve Eisenhauer) poses by a large white oak that the beavers have been gnawing on. Girdled trees, even if they are not brought down by the beaver, may die within a year or two since their nutrient flow is cut off, preventing the tree from carrying nutrients to its limbs to support leaf growth in the spring.
Though it is interesting to see beaver on the preserve, it is always somewhat startling to see the amount of destruction they can cause to trees and shrubs. After humans, beavers are the animals that cause the most change in their habitats.
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
| 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
