Hidden New Jersey

Our birding excursions at Sandy Hook usually lead us close to the tip of the hook, where Fort Hancock's Nine Gun Battery and Battery Pec...

Spring this year has been hit and miss, with very few warm days. Any nature lover with a flexible schedule would have headed to a favorite b...

Ah, the Bohemian Waxwing. The name sounds like something out of one of those caricatures about nutty bird watchers: "yes, we saw the ...

Standing as it does within a decommissioned U.S. Army fort, it's difficult to imagine that the Sandy Hook Lighthouse was once the target...

I have a lot of respect for horseshoe crabs, in a "prehistoric creature that fascinates me" kind of way. They're survivors, ha...

You may not notice at first glance, but Sandy Hook's Fort Hancock is, in many places, a study in uniformity and symmetry. With golden-hu...

Easter seemed like the perfect day for a trip to Sandy Hook for the annual nesting season of the Piping plover. It was a beautiful day, bree...

If the first really, really nice day of March is a gift, this year it's the winning lottery ticket. After the winter we've endured -...

Even after countless trips to Sandy Hook, I'm still finding new reasons to love the place. After visiting the snowy owl a few weeks ago...

Apparently the tundra-like atmosphere that makes our beaches appealing to only a hearty few New Jerseyans in November also makes them a favo...

It seems a little weird to compare the reopening of Sandy Hook to Christmas, but in my case, it works. It's long been the place where I ...

Just before you get to Fort Hancock on Sandy Hook, you might see a smallish stone wall with a replica ship's mast just behind it. Topped...

Even the crummy days this winter don't seem half bad. Though it was cloudy and felt as if showers were highly possible, I made the trip ...

Sandy Hook's Cold War-era Nike radar base is one of the many fascinating parts of Fort Hancock, and I've taken a few of the biweekl...

Each May, generally the weekend before Memorial Day, Sandy Hook's Fort Hancock pulls out all the stops for its annual Coastal Defenses D...

This past weekend's Sandy Hook jaunt was one of our classic birding/history mixed trips. Ivan had heard about a rare sighting of a male ...

Sandy Hook is rife with abandoned and decaying gun batteries and supporting structures. Look around closely enough, and you're bound to ...