First Meadowlands Festival Of Birding Takes Flight

Birders discover Peregrine falcons in Secaucus, Bald eagles in North Arlington

By Hugh M. Carola

The day was raw and windy but like birders everywhere, the folks who took part in the NJ Meadowlands Festival of Birding on October 17 didn’t care. The event - a joint venture between Hackensack Riverkeeper, the New Jersey Audubon Society (NJAS) and the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission (NJMC) - offered the 100+ participants numerous opportunities to learn about and observe many of the bird species that can be found in the Meadowlands.

Taking place at the Meadowlands Environment Center at Richard W. DeKorte Park in Lyndhurst, the Festival featured workshops, guided bird walks and other activities designed to teach people about birds and birding. Staffers from Hackensack Riverkeeper and the NJMC also conducted three birding trips aboard pontoon boats with assistance from NJAS naturalists.

Among the birds sighted were a pair of migrating Bald eagles spotted over Harrier Meadow in North Arlington by a group of birders led by Don Freiday of NJAS and Gabrielle Bennett-Meany, the Environment Center’s education director. Earlier in the day, birders aboard the Hackensack Riverkeeper vessel Robert H. Boyle observed Peregrine falcons and Northern harriers hunting over the Mill Creek Marsh in Secaucus. Large numbers of ducks as well as lingering shorebirds and egrets were also seen by many birders from aboard the boats and along the trails.

NJAS's Don Freiday shows a youngster how to focus a spotting scope during the first-ever NJ Meadowlands Festival of Birding.

“Fall is a great time to bird the Meadowlands,” said Captain Bill Sheehan, executive director, Hackensack Riverkeeper. “By October, lots of birds have moved through our region and many more are arriving to overwinter in the marshes.”

The Festival featured an entertaining keynote address by noted author and NJAS vice president Pete Dunne. During his talk, which was entitled “Musical Chairs,” Dunne spoke eloquently about how his love of nature and birds has affected him throughout his life. He bemoaned the fact so many young people - including his own nieces and nephews - spend much of their time behind locked doors and in front of computer screens. He offered this alternative:

Large numbers of ducks as well as lingering shorebirds and egrets
were seen by many birders from aboard the boats and along the trails.

“The next time you go birding, please do all of us a favor and take someone with you,” implored Dunne at the end of his talk. “Take your kids, take a friend, take your boss even; but take someone who will say ‘wow!’”

Prior to Dunne’s address, plans for a new ecotourism guide to the Meadowlands were unveiled to the audience. The guide, another cooperative venture between the Festival partners along with the Meadowlands Regional Chamber of Commerce, is expected to be published in early 2006 and will feature information on hiking, fishing, boating and paddling as well as birding.

In between field trips, workshops and the keynote address, festivalgoers shopped for binoculars, field guides and other birding-related merchandise from NJ Audubon’s Traveling Store and from Festival sponsor Wild Birds Unlimited of Paramus whose associates set up a complete backyard birdfeeding display inside the Environment Center.

Thanks to the success of the first-ever Meadowlands Festival of Birding, the organizing sponsors are already making plans for next year’s event.