The Fish Hawk

The habits of this famed bird differ so materially from those of almost all others of its genus, that an accurate description of them cannot fail to be highly interesting to the student of nature. 

-- John James Audubon

Osprey with menhaden, Cattus island, April 13, 2019 (Margo D. Beller)

There are times you must leave your home territory if you are going to spread your wings, as it were, and broaden your horizons. Now that the spring northbound migration is in full swing, I have been following a pattern of going myself to local bird spots and then traveling farther afield with MH. But with his knees, I am limited in where we can go. 

So it was I consulted one of my hiking books and found a reference to Cattus Island, which hasn't been an island for a very long time but a peninsula that juts into Barnegat Bay in Tom's River, NJ.

Osprey by John James Audubon

The land was originally a nearly 500-acre tract granted to Gawen Drummond, a Scotsman, in 1690. It changed hands over the years and was bought by county officials in 1973 for a bit under $3 million. Apparently there were plans to put in campsites, but there was so much vandalism to some of the original buildings on the property that this plan was shelved. Perhaps ballfields and other recreational sites? Luckily, that didn't happen either.

Instead, the land was left for "passive" recreation - aka walking. An environmental center was built and trails were blazed. 

Those trails are flat and travel through different types of habitat, making it perfect for MH's knees and my desire to see birds in an area, Ocean County, that is some distance south from my home area and thus closer to northbound birds. Also, the types of birds I would see would be shore birds such as herons, egrets and ducks. 

As it turns out, we saw far more than that because Cattus Island is known for its many successful osprey nests. There are 10 nests on the property and each was occupied by a pair. 

One of the many Cattus Island osprey nests (Margo D. Beller)

Among raptors, osprey are unique. They only eat fish, hence their nickname of "fish hawk," and will dive into the water to catch their prey. They are such good hunters, lazier hunters such as the bald eagle will frequently harass it into giving up the meal. That didn't happen on our trip because we saw no eagles. In fact, aside from an American kestrel, the smallest of the falcons, osprey were the only raptors we saw over the property.

The other shore birds found included great and snowy egrets plus some we hadn't seen in years: little blue heron, green heron, Louisiana (tricolored) heron (ironically, the more commonly seen great blue heron was apparently not around.) There was a huge raft of bufflehead ducks (with some greater scaup) on the calm waters of Silver Bay but out in the choppier waters of Barnegat Bay were long-tailed ducks and two types of scoters, black and surf. We didn't lack for land birds either: the woods provided us with bluebirds, brown creeper, blue-gray gnatcatchers, Carolina wren, four types of woodpeckers and a towhee. There were also warblers: pine and myrtle, which I expected, and an orange-crowned, which I did not.

Osprey hovering before diving for supper (Margo D. Beller)

But the fish hawks were the biggest thrill. They were everywhere. When not on their nests they flew over our heads or sat in trees just about begging for us to take their pictures, which we did. They hovered, constantly flapping their large wings, as they sought a suitable fish and then dove to grab it and bring it back to its mate. They were constantly calling to each other or to warn off other ospreys or to show their displeasure when I stood too long relatively close by and took their pictures with my long lens.

About the only downside to this place is I wanted to walk everywhere. MH and I took the main trail to the end, and then I walked on a side trail to see the ducks on Barnegat Bay. By day's end, when we'd seen 43 types of birds, I was footsore but happy.

Now, to find another region to explore for next time...

You Can Go Home Again

Osprey pair, Marine Park, Brooklyn (RE Berg-Andersson)

When I was growing up along the southern coast of Brooklyn, I knew Sheepshead Bay, which gave my neighborhood its name, but did not know my junior high school was named for Shell Bank Creek, which flows to the north of Plumb Island and east into where Gerritsen and Mill creeks merge, in turn flowing into Plumb Beach Channel and on to Rockaway Inlet and, eventually, to the Atlantic Ocean.

I knew there was a neighborhood called Mill Basin and one called Gerritsen Beach and the little beach off the Belt Parkway I could walk to from my house was Plumb Beach. But the waterways for which they are named meant nothing to me. My family didn't boat and didn't fish.

When we went to Plumb Beach or occasionally Gerritsen Beach, we had to watch for trash (or worse) in the sand and in the water when we walked to the edge. We never swam and no one ever kept the fish they caught in Sheepshead Bay.

Fast-forward over 40 years. The federal government took over the waterways and beaches stretching from New Jersey's Sandy Hook through Staten Island, hooking east to Brooklyn (including the former military base, Floyd Bennett Field), Queens' Jamaica Bay and the western-most parts of the Rockaway Peninsula to create the Gateway National Recreation Area in 1972. Gateway, according to its website, is a "complex urban park, preserving 27,000 acres of land and sea across two states and three New York City boroughs."

This is when the cleanup began as well as recognition that these inlets, bays and creeks are what make this area of New York City unique. The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time of environmental activism, when people worried about the effects of polluted air and water on their children, their communities and themselves.

The federal government stepped in it because it was expected to -- a far cry from today when the idea of any federal government program enacted for the public good draws outcry from some areas and is considered a foreign and dangerous concept akin to socialism.

I left Brooklyn for college in the early 1970s, and did not spend much time visiting the beaches when I would return for visits. It has only been in the last 15 years, when my husband and I, while living in New Jersey, became interested in watching birds, did we start visiting some of these areas, which had become prime birding sites thanks to cleaner beaches and water.

Marine Park salt marsh (RE Berg-Andersson)

For instance, I had been reading about a Marine Park Salt Marsh area and some of the interesting birds found there, but I was having a hard time visualizing it. I knew Marine Park - I would ride there, alone, no mobile phone or pager, no child-safety helmet - on my bike, go around the paved, circular drive a few times and then either come home or visit my grandmother in nearby Flatlands. The area across the road was dark, dense with trees and covered in garbage. You didn't go in there. How could this be a salt marsh?

Well, the area was opened up and there was the marsh, where it had been all along. An educational center was built to explain the marsh's importance. Best of all, a paved path takes you along the marsh itself, which is the end of Gerritsen Creek. At one point, we could see where the end of Mill Creek starts (at the back of the Marine Park golf course on Flatbush Ave.). In the distance one way is the  Gil Hodges Bridge to the Rockaway Peninsula. The other way stands the reminder of 9/11 known variously as the Freedom Tower, One World Trade Center or That Ugly Building Over There.

Thanks to federal spending on Gateway, I have learned about the forts that defended New York harbor, seen hundreds of different types of  birds and visited an airfield that is now a wildlife habitat.

Had I been a birder as a child, I would not have seen the osprey, green herons, black-crowned night-heron, great and snowy egrets and other marsh and shore birds I witnessed at the Marine Park Salt Marsh.

Great egret and smaller snowy egrets (RE Berg-Andersson)

It's too bad my parents weren't inclined to have a boat and ply the waters so near our home to such exotically named places as Dead Horse Bay, Island Channel and the Raunt. Then again, what would I have seen in those dark, unenlightened times?

We didn't know what we had back then. We do now.

At a time when the Obama administration wants to broaden environmental protection and cut back on the forces that promote global warming, opposition in Congress and some states wants to bring things back to the way things were, when water was polluted, the air was brown and bins of coal dust were out for the garbage men to dump. (I saw these bins because coal was used to heat my public school, across the street from my home.)

Those people who think any rules that impinge on their ability to deplete the land of birds, animals and fish or pollute the air we all breathe or do whatever the hell they want without "government on our backs" don't know what we have either.

Up on the roof

I’d like to have a mansion on a steep hill, lots of woods around it, lots of hiking trails and plants and people to take care of them.

Since I don’t, the next best thing is to visit someone else’s.

So there I was, standing on the roof of the Hoffman part of New Jersey Audubon’s Scherman-Hoffman sanctuary in Bernardsville, looking for raptors last week.

There are many better-known places to look for hawks. Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania may be one of the most famous, and you can learn about some of the others through the website hawkcount.org .

I like Scherman-Hoffman’s hawk platform because it is not well known and is very easy to get to - a good thing for someone who can’t or won't climb. Just take the elevator to the third floor and walk up the ramp and out the door. (There are no chairs up there, so for a long visit bring your own.)

Last year was the first for the hawk watch because it was the first year the expanded Hoffman education center was opened after years of construction. The watch was staffed by an intern named Ben who showed knowledge of birds' field marks and calls beyond his young years. He is now at Cornell so this year we are on our own.

On the roof, alone on a sunny day, I was keeping my own checklist. Turkey vultures? Check. Black vultures? Yep, a circling kettle of nine. Redtail, sharp shinned and cooper’s hawks? Got’em.

Ospreys? A lot of them.

This is an inland location, so it is always a thrill when the osprey, also known as the sea eagle, flies over. Many did while I stood on the roof.

I always thought the osprey should’ve been the national bird instead of the bald eagle. It only eats fish and is a very good hunter, hovering over the water before diving. If successful it comes up, seems to shrug its shoulders to shake off the excess water and then flies to a tree for a well-deserved meal.

By contrast, the bald eagle will eat just about anything, dead or alive, and isn‘t a very good hunter. It is not above taking a fish away from another bird, usually the osprey.

Besides, ospreys look so cool up there in the blue with that head and wing pattern.

After 30 minutes of standing on the roof, I took myself for a hike around the sanctuary to stretch my legs.

I have found all sorts of birds at the center’s new Field Loop Trail Spur, from the small gold-crowned kinglet to the redtailed hawk. I was not disappointed this time - an accipiter zipping across the trail, into the trees and to a branch just along enough for me to identify it as a juvenile cooper’s hawk. Thanks!

A hawk was expected. What was not expected was the pair of turkeys that crossed the path just before the cooper’s made its appearance.

Benjamin Franklin also thought the bald eagle was a bad choice for representing the fledgling United States, for much the same reasons I do. In a letter he said the eagle is a “bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly.”

By contrast he thought the wild turkey a “more respectable bird” and a “true original native of America” as well as a “bird of courage” that would “not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British Guards who would presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on.”

I suspect Franklin might have been writing with tongue in cheek, although I have heard stories of turkeys attacking people and cars and I've read they are increasing in number, spreading out across New Jersey.

The two turkeys that crossed my path in Bernardsville saw me and rather than attack - perhaps because I was not wearing a red coat - ran into the woods and just stood there, thinking I couldn’t see them.

Turkeys are not known for being smart.

However, these were smart enough to be at Scherman-Hoffman. If they hang around on the sanctuary's property long enough they will avoid the fate of their forebears at Thanksgiving.