New Jersey native reminded state is for birds

This is for all of you out there who have ever dumped on or otherwise made fun of New Jersey. (I, of course, have full license to do so since I am a native New Jerseyan.)

Contrary to popular belief, there are areas of New Jersey that are quite beautiful – a stark contrast to images of heavy industrialization, turnpikes, parkways (You live in New Jersey? What exit?), and toxic waste. In fact, some of the best birding can be done in the state.

Cape May, in southern New Jersey, hosts one of the most celebrated migration spectacles on the East Coast. Luckily, due to the foresight and determination of environmentally conscious people, many areas of New Jersey still have excellent bird habitat, even in places you’d least expect it. And, many people profess an avid interest in and knowledge of birds again, when you’d least expect it.

I paid a visit to the Garden State over the Thanksgiving holiday, getting together with family I hadn’t seen for a while. My parents now live in what would most likely be described as a citified suburb, quite congested but still containing green space. There are three large parks within a five-minute drive of their house.

One of these, Lenape Park, is named after the first inhabitants of the region (Lenape means the original people). It consists of 450 acres of wetlands, meadows and forest, creating a green corridor along the Rahway River and a haven for more than 190 species of birds, many of which are on the state’s Endangered and Threatened Species List.

I visited Lenape Park as much as I could. The first time, I was approached by a man walking his overweight chocolate lab.

“Did you see the kingfisher on that branch, there?” he asked. For once, I did not have my binoculars with me, having left them at a relative’s house. He went to his car and retrieved a small pair of binoculars for me to get a good view of the bird which was, in fact, a female kingfisher.

The second time I was approached by a jogger who noted the binoculars in my hands.

“Are you a birdwatcher? There were bluebirds in those trees just a minute ago!” he exclaimed. Sure enough, I looked and there they were.

The third time, I was noticed by two men who were having what New Jerseyites would consider a normal decibel-level conversation (that is, they were talking LOUDLY). One of them wore a black leather jacket and dark glasses. He saw me with my binoculars.

“There are bluebirds here, hon,” he said. I responded that I had seen them.

“Oh, they’re our resident pair,” he elaborated. He seemed to have an especially thick Jersey accent, and very Italian-sounding – a la “The Sopranos.”

“Their first brood, they raised four young. With the second brood, the father didn’t look after them too good, and sparrows got in and killed most of the nestlings.”

I asked him who had put up the nest boxes.

“Oh, that’s our guy Frank! He gets things done around here! He’s a retired cop from Union. He made sure they stopped mowing the wet meadow down, and now he’s trying to get rid of the Japanese knotweed. You know about Japanese knotweed, don’t you? But it’s a two-edged sword – they started spraying here. I said, “HEY! You can’t spray herbicides here!'”

In the end, I walked away with a huge smile on my face. Whenever people start dishing New Jersey and the toxic waste jokes come out, I’ll remember what this guy said, and what the others shared with me.

There is hope, after all.

Chris Corio, a volunteer at Fields Pond Audubon Center in Holden, can be reached at fieldspond@juno.com