Cormorants Swim Where Brenda Jones and I Birded By Car…

NJ WILD readers know, if they know anything about me, how precious is the birding refuge, ‘The Brig’, A.K.A. Edwin B. Forsythe Wildlife Refuge to me, as a birder, and far more profoundly, as a spiritual being.

It’s where I restore myself when “the world is too much with me”, more and more frequently these days.  Far more important than I, however, ‘The Brig’ is a key stopover on the Atlantic Flyway, rich in rarities at all times.  Perhaps never more precious than in winter, when winged creatures elsewhere can be scarce.

Duck Flight Before Storm, Brenda Jones

Everyone also knows that un-hurricaned Sandy destroyed great swathes of our beloved New Jersey’s three coastlines, especially The Shore, especially at and in and near Atlantic City.

One of the eeriest factors of being at ‘The Brig’ is that you see all those gambling towers through the migrant flocks.  My happiest times at ‘The Brig’ are when I can’t see Atlantic City, because of fog or whatever.

I have been down at the Brig in fire, fog and ice. I can never believe that anyone would rather be in those towering prisons of glass, those cacophonous, frenzied places, rather than in the seamless peace of the marshy reaches of The Brigantine.

Great Egret, Great Peace of Brigantine Wildlife Refuge, Brenda Jones

I can’t drive it’s dike road any more, because it has been severed by uncategorized-storm-Sandy.

Cormorants swim where I used to bird by car.

All those carefully managed impoundments with their specific salinities, to nourish certain aquatic plants and shelter and feed certain waterfowl, are fouled.  The Bay, –Absecon Bay, whatever its salinity in the storm and ever since–, has surged in.  The Brig, as we know it, is no more.

Grebe Swallowing Frog, Brigantine Wildlife Refuge December Drama — Anne Zeman

I’m going down there for Christmas, ‘come hell or high water’.  Certain walking trails are open, and birds don’t watch the Weather Channel.  I’ll check out Leed’s Point, where the Jersey Devil was purportedly born and which thrives as a tiny old-world fishing village, at least until Sandy.  Herons frequently soar in and land on Leed’s Point pilings.  I’ll drive the bumpy sand road to and from Scott’s Landing, always remembering encountering hunters with their ‘bag’ of bloodied snow geese there, late one autumn.  Odd, I’ve never read a recipe for snow goose.  How neatly they were lined up along the sand…  below the targets, silhouettes that teach hunters the differences among birds on the wing at various distances.

Snow Geese In Flight, Brenda Jones

How Snow Geese Look when they hear shots….  cfe

In the meantime, this is some of ‘The Brig’s’ reality.  God KNOWS what’s happened at my other major havens - Island Beach, south of ruined Bay Head, Mantoloking, Seaside and so forth, and Sandy Hook, up by the Highlands and too many rivers….

Serenity and Tumult, Bay Head, Carolyn Foote Edelmann

NJ WILD BEAUTY, ISLAND BEACH    Carolyn Foote Edelmann

Pristine Barnegat Bay, which rose to meet the Atlantic…   Carolyn Foote Edelmann

Winter Realities, Normal Sandy Hook, Carolyn Foote Edelmann

Sandy Hook, Bay Side, After a Hard Winter    Carolyn Foote Edelmann

Brigantine Serenity from Leed’s Eco-Trail    Carolyn Foote Edelmann

Cloudscape, Summer, Brigantine   Carolyn Foote Edelmann

Glossy Ibis and Marsh Mallow’s First Bloom, Brigantine    Carolyn Foote Edelmann

Update as of Friday, December 7 at 10 a.m.: The Wildlife Drive in Galloway remains closed due to damage from Hurricane Sandy. The Songbird Trail, including the portion that uses the Wildlife Drive, will be closed December 10 through 14 due to a refuge hunt. Other hiking trails in Galloway are open from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. daily, including the Akers Woodland Trail, Leed’s Eco-trail, and foot access to Gull Pond Tower.

The Visitor Information Center is open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.weekends. All fees have been temporarily waived.

Scott’s Landing Boat Launch is open. Barnegat Observation Platform is open. The deCamp Wildlife Trail in Brick Township is open for the first 2000 feet. Holgate remains closed.

Introduction

The Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, where more than 47,000 acres of southern New Jersey coastal habitats are actively protected and managed for migratory birds. Forsythe is one of more than 500 refuges in the National Wildlife Refuge System administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The National Wildlife Refuge System is a network of lands and waters managed specifically for the protection of wildlife and wildlife habitat and represents the most comprehensive wildlife resource management program in the world. Units of the system stretch across the United States from northern Alaska to the Florida Keys, and include small islands in the Caribbean and South Pacific. The character of the Refuges is as diverse as the nation itself.

Wish me well on my Christmas pilgrimage.  Far More Important, wish the birds well no matter man’s depredations.

Do whatever you can, wherever you are, even in those 90 countries who, for some reason, read NJ WILD about our dear state, to preserve refuges in your region.

And pay attention to catastrophic climate change.  It’s no myth.  It’s not a subject for believe.  We have seen, to borrow the Pogo line, catastrophic climate change, and it is us.

What Sandy did was dress rehearsal.  Sandy scrawled the signature of inevitable sea level rise for all the world to see.  Sandy was not a one-time event.  Sea level rise will not undo itself, as do hurricanes in time.  Although not in damage.

Our world is changed forever.

Sandy didn’t change it.

We did.

What are you doing about it?