All hail the King (rail) of Bayonne!

Wow, was all I could say. I went to Bayonne to find a new species for my New Jersey birding list, and I was astounded by what else I found.

The New Jersey birding community has been abuzz with the sighting of a King rail near the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway, a natural oasis of sorts nestled among the city's shipping terminals and oil tanks. Finding rare avian visitors in industrialized areas is no real shock for local birders - as we've found often in Hudson County, pockets of nature thrive where some would assume it to be impossible, and water quality has improved enough to host wildlife. I wasn't quite sure what I'd find there, but I was prepared for just about anything. Maps of the area showed a good-sized green area labeled "Bayonne Golf Club" on a tract of land jutting into upper New York Bay. Rather than looking into it before my trip, I just headed out, road directions in hand.

As for the King rail, it's a rarer visitor to New Jersey's marshes than the species usually seen here, the Clapper rail. Well, it's usually more "hearing" than "seeing": secretive by nature, rails generally live among the reeds and grasses of wetlands, frustrating birders by their clapping calls. (Needless to say, rails are masters at the game of Marco Polo.)  If you're going to see them at all, it's likely to be at low tide as they come out to feed on crustaceans and insects. Clappers tend toward saltwater marshes, while Kings are freshwater birds, with the two species sometimes sharing space (and cross mating) in brackish marshes. Bayonne, located on the bay where Hudson River and Atlantic Ocean waters meet and mix, is apparently geographically desirable for Kings and Clappers.

After a wrong turn that landed me in Bayonne's Marine Ocean Terminal, I found parking for the Walkway in a strip mall lot. I was barely out of my car when I saw a binocular-wearing couple coming off the path. "Here for the rail?" one asked. Just down the path a bit, alongside the long bridge, he told me, adding that other birders were still there. The usual rule was in force: when in doubt where to find a chase bird, look for the crowd.

The walkway winds along the northern edge of what's traditionally known as Constable Hook, with an inlet on one side and a reclaimed landfill on the other. This, as I discovered, was no typical capped landfill, but more on that in a moment. The wild grasses and flowers on the undulating slope put me in the mind of Scotland or Ireland, and the goldfinches perching on the thistles had to agree that someone had done a good job of making a nice habitat. I noticed a few egrets in the inlet to my left, patiently waiting for an early lunch to swim by.

The farther I walked along, the more the pieces came together. The "Bayonne Golf Club" I'd seen on the map isn't a city owned course; it's an all-out exclusive country club, modeled after the traditional links courses in Scotland. At the crest of the hill was a large, expensive-looking clubhouse with a huge American flag flying beside it. According to designer Eric Bergstol, as quoted on Golf.com, the economics of converting the landfill and doing the necessary wetlands mitigation blew the concept of a low-cost public links course out of the water, so it appears he hit for the fences. Bulldozer-sculpted hills and dales are lined by grasses, shrubs and flowers recommended by a Rutgers agronomist, all within the backdrop of Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty and the container cranes of the port. As part of the deal, the developers were required to provide public access to the waterfront, hence the walkway.

The King rail had found a home in a most regal environment.

Fortunately, if a rule of finding chase birds is to find the crowd, the next rule is to look wherever you see someone aiming their optics. As I crossed the bridge on the walkway, I encountered a man with a viewing scope aimed between the railing and support struts. Maybe he had the rail? I walked up slowly, figuring not to scare it if it was there. It wasn't, but the consolation was a very cooperative Yellow-crowned night heron, plus more specific guidance on the rail's whereabouts. It wasn't much farther - maybe 100 feet.

Two birders were on the site as I arrived, waiting for the secretive rail to emerge from the grass to forage on the small patch of mud to the side of the bridge. A little farther down, where a wider mudflat held a stream, they'd seen a rail chick who was a bit less shy, and in the distance they'd noticed a Clapper rail.

Yup, that's the King rail, right in the middle.

Knowing I wouldn't be able to differentiate a King rail chick from a Clapper rail chick, I decided to wait the adult King out by the mud patch. A moment or two later, I noticed some movement in the grass, just behind the first layer of reedy grass. Looking closer, I was pretty sure it was the King (overall, they're a rustier shade than their cousins), but it was tough to tell because he was preening. I wasn't going to let that be the sum of my first-ever look at his species, so I sat down to wait, staring at that patch of grass as the occasional golf cart whirred past behind me.

It may sound crazy, but in situations like that, I like to send a mental message to the bird, letting him know it's safe and I just want to admire him. Sometimes it works; other times it rises to levels of frustration that nearly lead me to a Sheldon Cooper-type tantrum.

Are we in golf heaven? No, Bayonne.

This time it worked. Like an actor coming onstage, the rail emerged from the curtain of grass to walk to an open area where I could see him completely. Stopping, he posed with his wings raised above his back, as if to air them. Then, like a model, he walked a few more steps and turned, allowing me to see the rest of him as I committed him to memory.

Just as I was thanking the bird for being so cooperative, a golf cart stopped behind me and the King ducked back into the grass. Two course employees were wondering why so many binocular-toting people had been standing around the bridge for the past few days. Pulling out my Sibley guide to show them, I explained the significance of the rail and complimented them on the golf club's work to create a good environment for birds. It didn't occur to me until now that the rail was as much of a VIP (or VIB) as any of the club's members, and he didn't require use of the club's exclusive boat or helicopter to get to the links.

FEED ME! Looking for carnivorous plants at High Point

Dangerous, man-eating plants on state property? Carnivorous greenery? Sounds like something straight out of a Toxic Avenger episode set in the Meadowlands, but the real story is much different. The plants don't eat people, but they'll enjoy a good insect from time to time. And they're in what could be considered an unlikely location: within the highest elevation Atlantic white cedar swamp in the world, Kuser Bog at High Point State Park.

The bog wasn't the first place on our schedule for the day. We figured we'd start at the Sunrise Mountain hawk watch, but no such luck. The one-way road to the appropriate parking lot was closed due to hurricane damage, and then the back route was also blocked off. I guess with budget cuts and whatnot, the State Division of Parks and Forestry is waiting till spring to repair the road. After all, if the road isn't open, you don't have to plow it in the winter, right? Granted, we could have hiked several miles of the Appalachian Trail to get to the watch, but Ivan suggested that we might be able to catch some hawk action at the High Point monument instead. Next stop: Kuser Bog.

Now, most people would figure that wetlands of any kind - bog, swamp, marsh, you name it - would be close to the coast, or at least near a large body of water. Kuser Bog represents the remnants of a glacial lake that started to fill in, creating the alternately moist, mushy and dry terrain we see today. It's now host to Atlantic cedars up to 300 years old, plus rhododendron, black gum and hemlock trees, among others. It's also home to a (relatively) high-altitude collection of sundews and other carnivorous plants.

We took to the trail looking for those plants. I didn't truly expect to see Audrey from the Little Shop of Horrors, but it would have been cool to see some sort of bug-eating activity. We noticed a lot of bright green sphagnum moss and some succulent-looking plants in the wetter areas of the bog, but we saw no blooms. I guess we were just too late in the season.

Even without the marquee plants, Kuser Bog is pretty cool. At a point, the dirt path transfers over to a boardwalk over shallow water, lined on either side by vast cedars. We heard and saw only a few birds and the chatter of a squirrel or two, but at one point the walk was dampened by water that had apparently dripped off something that had jumped onto the boards. Too small to be a bear ... maybe a muskrat or something?

Later at the High Point monument, Ivan pointed out a brownish green patch among the fall foliage below us. No doubt it was the bog, an interesting anomaly within the highlands ecosystem. If you want diversity of wetlands, New Jersey is certainly the place to be!

Mill Creek Marsh: the shorebirds' preferred Turnpike rest stop

On a hot Saturday morning, with not a cloud in the sky, we headed to the Meadowlands to find some shorebirds. Believe it or not, their migration season has already begun, and surely some would be making a pit stop in the area for rest and refreshments.

Our first stop was DeKorte Park, home to the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission, but it wasn't as productive as we'd hoped. Despite the substantial trail network there, much of our expected route was off limits, and besides, it was high tide. The sandpipers and plovers didn't have much space to peck about in the mud, because it was essentially flooded for the time being. It was time for plan B, Mill Creek Marsh off the Hackensack River in Secaucus.

Mill Creek is just a few miles away
from downtown Manhattan, as the crow flies.

If you've used the eastern spur of the NJ Turnpike just south of the Vince Lombardi Service Area, you know Mill Creek, even if you don't know its name. Tucked away in the Harmon Meadow shopping area near Bob's Discount Furniture, this spot indicates what the Meadowlands was like in the days before landfills and rampant development. Shoppers looking for great deals can easily take a walk back in time and learn a bit about the natural climate that predates the retail complex.

What we didn't see at DeKorte we saw at Mill Creek in abundance: sandpipers, yellowlegs, and both snowy and great egrets. Never having seen both kinds of egret together, I was amused to see that the great is quite a bit bigger than the snowy; but for the difference in beak color I'd have thought the snowy was the great's offspring. We also were treated to the sight of an immature Baltimore oriole, its orange markings not yet darkened from the juvenile yellow.

Marsh wrens, though clearly making their presence known vocally, were frustratingly difficult to spot. It seemed that every time we approached a substantial patch of spartina, one or two would start to sing, but they never came up to introduce themselves. After a few instances, I mused that there had to be some sort of trip wire along the path that triggers a recording of the song every time someone gets near. Well, even if we didn't actually spot them, I enjoyed their song.

Mill Creek offers a lot, even if you're not into birds. The area was regraded and restored to highlight the beauty of its original tidal flow, and this time of year you'll see plenty of blooming marsh mallow along the path along with healthy marsh grasses. Surprisingly, on our visit it wasn't buggy at all; while we saw the average number of dragonflies and butterflies, we were unscathed by mosquitoes. Proper tidal flow and ample insect-eating birds are doing their job, it seems.

Marsh mallow and other wetlands greenery
overtake an old cedar stump.

Once you get to one of the pools closer to the highway, you'll also see remnants of the Meadows' historic past -- the stumps of American cedar trees. Long ago, the marshes were home to large tracts of these fragrant hardwood trees, and their demise is the subject of a few interesting Colonial-era stories. Some say that the colonists burned the forest down before the Revolution, to root pirates out from the many hiding places on streams within the swamp. Others say that the forests were cut down to the point of extinction, their highly-prized wood sold off for various uses. The scientific answer is that human intervention (namely the construction of the Oradell Dam) changed the water composition, turning the marsh brackish and cutting off the fresh water the trees need. Regardless of what happened, the stumps remain, creating an interesting landscape of gnarled and weathered roots and perches for cormorants and the like.

The only real down side to Mill Creek is the incessant hum of Turnpike traffic, but you can still hear the sounds of the marsh without much trouble (where are those truck noise cancelling headphones when you need them?). It doesn't take much to see that the Meadowlands is on the rebound after years of environmental abuse. Just ask the birds: they're finding plenty of healthy food to eat, and the marsh is clearly on their maps.