A Great Way to End the Year!

Two great sights for the last day of the year. A saunter around the southern end of Sandy Hook, near the Visitor Center yielded the view of a Coopers Hawk perched high atop an electric pole looking below at the many sparrows flying about in the marsh. Patience paid off, about 30 minutes later, the hawk moved from pole to pole then a rush of speed to overtake a sparrow. Here is real nature in the wild.

 Later  on while at home I spotted a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk perched in a tree in my backyard. The hawk did not stay long. Several crows chased it away, but I am sure the hawk will be seen again sometime in 2011.

The climax of the day, however, was the weather. Bright sun, clear blue skies, and air temperatures into the upper 40s. The mild air made the day seem quite spring like, even though winter just barely begun and people have yet to put away their holiday decorations.

Symposium:Environmental History of New York City and the Hudson River

Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Environmental History of New York City and the Hudson River

A symposium examining the past 400 years of how natural attributes of the Hudson River and its great all-season harbor permitted the emerging metropolis at its mouth to grow and prosper; how those human uses in turn influenced the ecological health of the Hudson River and the harbor; and how, once they were changed, the consequences for subsequent human activities. This city, like no other in the world, was founded on, and grew as a result of, commercial activity. Those enterprises have greatly affected the river, the harbor, and the city itself. Invited experts will describe ecosystems during the period of human occupation and use. Others will describe the principal functions of early New Amsterdam, and the emerging metropolis. The modern harbor will be analyzed. All authors will examine both causes and effects.

We hope to foster new discussions and new ways of reasoning among historians, biologists, economists, and other disciplines. The content is of great value to the personnel of regulatory and administrative agencies. All authors will orient their discussions around the conceptual feedback relationships between extant ecosystem character and how human uses affect those ecosystems.

Who should attend:

• Historians, anthropologists, archeologists, artists, economists
• Biologists, ecologists, agriculturists, agronomists, environmentalists
• Hydrologists and water quality engineers
• Decision makers, administrators, regulators
• Educators at all levels
• Hudson River Enthusiasts

Special Presentation by Dr. Eric Sanderson, author of “Mannahatta”
Welikia:  The ecology and wildlife of New York City beyond Mannahatta 1609

The conference will be held on Feb 9^th at the Manhattan campus of Pace University.  Can you send this information to the HEP mailing list?  The list of speakers is attached.  Registration information can be found at the HRES website:  http://hres.is.marist.edu/

Ice Forms Along the Edge of the Bay

Greetings! Since the recent great holiday snow storm of 2010 has left many side roads impassable and parks closed or still digging out, I have been forced to stay local. All is not lost though, the bay has much to offer and explore locally in the winter landscape.

The recent snow storm and cold temperatures have caused the shallow, knee-deep edges of the bay to freeze up. The first sight of floating ice in the bay this winter!  Water temperatures in these shallow areas must be around 28.9°F, since salt water and brackish water freeze at a lower temperature than freshwater, which freezes at 32 degrees.  

With air temperatures predicted to rise around 50 degrees over the upcoming holiday weekend, the ice floes will not stay around much longer. So get out and check out the cool looking ice on the bay before it all melts away. 

Some Winter Birds Seen In or Near Pews Creek, Middletown Township, NJ

Hooded Mergansers

Buffleheads

Northern Mockingbird eating berries

Winter Arrives with a Big After Christmas Blizzard

Early morning, a few days after the big after Christmas blizzard had hit the Jersey Shore and Lower New Bay, the first real storm of the season.  It was a crisp morning, the air was 28°F, the skies were clearing, and I had 2-feet or more of snow cover around my house. It was difficult to tell, though, with all of the drifting caused by the blustery winds that were gusting up to 30mph.

As the coastal storm was slowly ebbing away, here I was still clearing the snow that had fallen Sunday into the early morning hours of Monday. After a few months of ho-hum weather, it seems that Mother Nature has picked up where she left off from last winter, one of the worst in recent memory.

A dark and stormy evening along the northern Jersey Shore

This winter season has started off with another extreme winter storm. The holiday blizzard of 2010 was a huge, intense coastal storm that dumped between 2 to 3 feet of snow in the New Jersey/New York region and offered up scores of cruel, pounding winds with gusts up to 50mph or more. Some nearby places even experienced wind gusts up to 70 or 80 mph, which is in the range of hurricane force winds. The wind, the cold, and the snow all combined to make it an authentic blizzard.

Nearly 25 inches of snow fell on my property in Atlantic Highlands

Keep in mind that average snowfall for December along the Jersey Shore should be about 5 inches. That amount seems almost old-fashioned.

Gone are the days it seems when winter would arrive with mellow storms that provided a few inches of light, fresh snow. As the saying goes, this is not your father's weather anymore. Now we measure winter storms not by the inches, but by the feet and by the velocity of the high winds.

Winds gusting up to 50 mph or more were blowing and drifting snow all around during the height of the storm late Sunday evening

This blizzard marks the first big storm of the season tracked by meteorologists.  Yes, last year was the snowiest on record in many parts of New Jersey,  with over 55 inches of accumulation measured between December 2009 and March 2010, but in terms of snowfall for one storm, this December 2010 storm was a monster with well over two feet of snow. Union County registered 31.8 inches of snow and Roselle received just about 29 inches. Days after the storm, snow drifts were being measured in feet, up to seven or more feet along some side-streets and parking lots.

The day after the big storm

Yet, in its wake, life always seems to go on around the bay. Overhead I heard birds calling. I looked up to see several flocks of Canada geese flying high and southward around mid-morning. These were definitely migrating geese, as the locals generally fly east to west at treetop level, from inland to the coast, but rarely south to north. These geese were anxiously headed south, perhaps to Delaware Bay or Chesapeake Bay  and would probably remain there for a couple of weeks or until the harsh weather in Lower New York Bay has passed.

There is beauty in the snow and ice. Some of the subtle joys of winter

Down along Sandy Hook Bay, it was cold and blustery with whitecaps, but out on the water I could see with binoculars a nice assortment of waterfowl: mallards, black ducks, buffleheads, brant, hooded mergansers, red-breasted mergansers, and a single golden-eye. There were even a few great blue herons, and at least 3 or 4 harbor seals basking in the noon day sun on a not to far sandbar.

Although this week marks end of another year, it is only the beginning of winter. The curtain has gone up on another winter season along the Jersey Shore. It is a time of roaring fires, comfort food, birds brimming at back-yard feeders, and then there is snow.  Welcome to winter!