Walking Again

It was with great relief that for the first time in too long I was finally able to walk the paths of my favorite birding locations without fear of slipping on ice and falling. 

Picture taken from the path next to the Whippany River,
the water practically lapping at my feet.
(Margo D. Beller)

Just like last year, the melting snow had raised the level of the Whippany River that flows along one part of Patriots Path. Had I been there a day or two earlier there would've been water on the path. But the day I walked the path was mainly dry, with a lot of standing water on the ground on either side. Where the Whippany River joined Watnong Brook, however, the water covered the path and ice was beyond. At this point I turned around.

I noticed that more trees had fallen since I was last there. The areas that usually flood were filled with water. I could hear Canada geese on the move now that ponds weren't frozen solid.

I enjoyed the walk and hearing the singing cardinals, robins and others proclaiming their breeding territories. I saw three pairs of mallards in the river, a redtailed hawk quietly aloft and a not-so-quiet redshouldered hawk calling from deep in the woods. Even the deer browsing in a less-wet area were a fine sight (especially as they were not in my yard).

If you look closely you'll see four deer in this picture but there were actually seven feeding.
(Margo D. Beller)

The previous winter we had little snow but a lot of rain, which caused flooding in late March going into April. This winter we had too much snow and so the spring floods came earlier when the temperatures rose above freezing and the melting began. 

With the snow now mainly gone from my yard I can walk to the feeder poles and to the compost pile without using an ice chopper as a support. I dug out six months' worth of brush and put it at the curb for eventual pickup. I even tempted fate to pull out the driveway reflectors, hoping the snow is done for the season.

As far as I cared to go. (Margo D. Beller)

The first crocus have flowered, the daffodils are growing and there are signs the snowdrop will bloom, albeit later than usual because of the deep snow cover. The three plants I bought last fall don't look so hot. Nor do many of my shrubs. However, I've been surprised before by the resiliency of the perennials. The flowers remind me I have to start thinking about cleaning out the winter debris and cutting back some of the plants, as I usually do in March. 

As usual, I'm far from ready for that chore. 

Out in the Cold

In winter we behold the charms of solemn majesty and naked grandeur.  -- James Ellis

This morning it was 14 degrees F when the sun rose after 7 a.m. ET. I had lingered in bed under quilts and was not interested in moving. Then I remembered the birds.

Winter, Patriots Path, Nov. 22, 2025 (Margo D. Beller)

Ever since bears damaged feeders and the poles they hang on - several times over the years - I've brought the feeders in at night. But while I was lying under covers, the birds were in shrubs, hedges and on tree branches, puffing themselves up to maintain a layer of warmth under their feathers to survive the cold. It is why I leave the feeders out as long as possible before dark, so they have the fat energy for survival, and why I rouse myself from my warm bed to put the feeders out in the morning.

Lots of birds came to the feeders today, including the red-breasted nuthatch pair that has been hanging around the yard for way over a week. I did not travel far this cold morning, but one morning the previous week, when it was a balmy 17 degrees at sunrise, I took myself to the nearby linear park known as Patriots Path.

White-throated sparrow (Margo D. Beller)

This park goes on for many miles through my home county. I parked at one section started walking.  

I've seen interesting birds in this particular section in all seasons, and there have been many changes in the topography over the years. But now I just wanted to walk and hope something interesting called for me (or Merlin) to hear and identify. I wanted to see what birds do in the cold. It turns out, the same as any other day - get something to eat and try not to be eaten. In the cold, however, I sensed a bit more frenzy.

As I began my walk, a flock of American crows circled and cawed. Were they chatting among themselves, as corvids are wont to do, or were they disturbed by something - a hawk or me? They circled and departed, but then several black vultures flew overhead. Then some turkey vultures. All the vultures started landing in some of the bare trees near the river. The vulture types did not mingle. 

Among them were six turkey vultures roosting in one tree, and beneath them three deer, in winter camoflage, were browsing the winter-killed grasses. They raised their heads, looked at me, then continued eating. This is a hard time for deer. Plants they'd normally browse have died or gone dormant, and people are out trying to shoot them. This section of the park used to be marked as a "Deer Management Area" but I noticed the orange sign had been removed. No hunting here today.

Turkey vulture (RE Berg-Andersson)

With my binoculars I looked at all the birds and found a roosting red-tailed hawk in a separate tree. All these raptors were waiting for the sun to hit them so they could be warm enough to hunt for their breakfast. I wondered, where did the vultures come from and why did they pick this area to congregate? I can only guess.

The cold kept the number of walkers, with or without dogs, at a minimum so the birds remained where they were as I stood still to watch and listen. Near the intersection with the next road were many birds flying around, looking for food or just some warm sunshine. Robins and rusty blackbirds flew around the trees. White-crowned and song sparrows called from thick shrubbery. I was lucky a swamp sparrow allowed me to see its rich colors. A raven croaked as it flew by overhead. Goldfinches and juncos flitted around. Various woodpeckers banged at trees to dislodge hidden insects. Titmice hung upside-down on smaller branches, doing the same. Jays, white-breasted nuthatch and fish crows called. 

Roosting red-tailed hawk from another time (Margo D. Beller)

I stood for a long time listening, or at least trying to hear over the sound of morning rush hour traffic. (Merlin was a great help in this.) Where the birds went fast, I went slow. But despite my winter gear the cold started affecting me, starting with my legs. Holding the binoculars made my hands very cold, and it was hard to focus the gears. Had I been carrying my stick it would've become painful through my glove. Instead, I was holding my phone, which the cold also affected. Between the cold and the Merlin app the phone dropped to a dangerously low power level. I shut everything off and walked quickly back to my car to warm up.

But I was satisfied with all I saw and heard despite the discomfort. According to the New Jersey Bird Records Committee's list of every bird ever recorded (and verified) in New Jersey (part of a plethora of lists and annual reports it puts out), 502 types of birds have been found in the state (plus five now considered extinct). I got to see or hear 15 of them.

Another time out in the cold. (RE Berg-Andersson)

Today the early birder got the birds. 

Then and Now

Nature abhors a vacuum. Clear land and do nothing with it and soon things will grow. If they are plants you don't want, they are considered "invasives" and "weeds." If they are plants you do want, they are considered "natives."

The same is true if you have an area prone to flooding. It fills with water after heavy rains. If there are no trees around to shade the area, the area dries out and things start to grow.

Ice pond, 2017 (Margo D. Beller)

A perfect example of this is along the linear park near me known as Patriots Path.

In 2018, the county parks people were cutting down trees infested by emerald ash borers. As I discovered, a lot of ash trees were growing along Patriots Path and those trees were soon cut and strewn around like trash. (Eventually they were removed.)

When the spring rains were heavy, the nearby Whippany River would overflow its banks and spread through the woods, across the path and into this area that acted like a bowl. Even after the waters receded and the path was walkable again there would be water for weeks afterwards.

Pond once the trees started coming down, 2018.
(Margo D. Beller)

One spring I walked the path after it had dried and came upon nearly two dozen mallards (plus pairs of wood ducks and Canada geese) that were in the water that remained on either side. At my approach the water fowl slowly moved off toward the Whippany River.

This area I'm mentioning had been shaded by trees, many of which, as I learned, were ash trees. When the trees came down the area was more exposed to the sun. And then a very interesting thing happened.

The water was replaced by plants.

There were weeds, yes, including wild grape vines, Virginia creeper, the inevitable poison ivy and others I can't identify. But there were also things growing that I can identify - joe-pye weed, cardinal flowers and cattails. Joe-pye and cardinal bloom in the fall. They are very popular with pollenators including bees and hummingbirds, the latter of which have already begun migrating south for the winter. Unlike the invasive phragmites, cattails also provide pollen and are important to some species of birds. 

The former pond, 2025 (Margo D. Beller)

According to The Nature Conservancy: Yellow-headed and red-winged blackbirds, and marsh wrens perch and build their nests on them. Waterfowl, such as Mallards and Canada Geese, nest among them. Frogs and salamanders lay their eggs in the water on and between them. Fish hide or nest among them. Many birds use the seed fluff to line their nests. Muskrats use rhizomes for food and the foliage to build their houses. This then provides resting and nesting sites for water birds. Deer, raccoons, cottontails and turkeys use them as cover. Insects eat and live on them. 

In addition, I learned, all of the cattail is edible. 

Cattails (Margo D. Beller)

These are different from phragmites, which, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, form highly dense stands that quickly outcompete native plants, degrade large areas of highly productive wetlands, drastically reduce habitat diversity and function, impair human use of beaches and recreational areas, and negatively impacts dependent wildlife and a multi-billion-dollar regional fishery.

Thanks to the plants, any rainwater has been sucked up far faster than before. I have seen no ice ponds in years. 

Cardinal flower (Margo D. Beller)

For all I know, the county park commission had people put these native plants in the ground. Or the plants could've come from someone's nearby garden. Or the seeds, floating around in the air we breathe, fell in the right place at the right time.

However they got to this place they have made this walking path a much more colorful place.

Odds And Ends

Most of the leaves have come down, except for those of the white oaks in back and the walnut in front between my property and the neighbor's. The acorns finished coming down, at least on my porch roof and patio, weeks ago but there are still plenty of pods left in the locust tree. 

All the important plant work is done, the pots stowed away. With the exception of a couple of small jobs, I can rest for the winter. 

So now I'm looking through the pictures I took that didn't get used in a blog post. 

For instance, here is Speedwell Lake, located not far from where I live. It is stocked with trout, drawing fishermen and fishing birds, including great blue herons, double-crested cormorants and the occasional osprey. I liked the mirror effect in this picture taken in August.

(Margo D. Beller)

This next picture, meanwhile, was taken in October. I was walking along Patriots Path, a Morris County park near me I've written about many times. I was in an area where once heavy rains would create a lake. When many of the trees were removed because of emerald ash borer infestation, there was more light and so more grasses and weeds started filling in the space. On this day I noticed stands of cattails had suddenly (to me) appeared. Unlike phragmites, which are invasive and considered a biological threat, cattails are important for preserving wetlands. Finding these shows the environment is never static. 

(Margo D. Beller)

Sometimes I find things I can't identify, such as this flowering vine. 

(Margo D. Beller)

In October we had several mornings when I woke up to thick fog. This was the view out my front door one such morning.

(Margo D. Beller)

I enjoy the colorful autumn leaves, especially if I don't have to rake them. The camera does not do the scene justice, unfortunately.

Oct. 28, 2023, Patriots Path
(Margo D. Beller)

I like pathway pictures. This is another section of Patriots Path that, unlike the area where I took the picture of the leaves, is paved. It is popular with walkers, bikers and runners. It can also be very good for finding birds if you get there early, before it gets too crowded, but late enough for the sun to hit the tree tops and attract birds looking for food.

(Margo D. Beller)

Once in a while, you find a surprise. One area of Patriots Path I like to hike is along the Whippany River, which will eventually flow into Speedwell Lake. I have found many birds along this path including warblers in season, different types of ducks, great blue herons and Canada geese. But there have been oddities too, including over 20 turkey vultures roosting in a tree (with several black vultures below them on the ground) waiting for the sun to warm them. This time, in late October, my husband and I were walking along here when something noisily took off from a branch high above us. As it flew off I could see it was a mature bald eagle. But then it flew to a tree on the other side of the recycling center across the river. It stayed long enough for both of us to take some pictures. This picture is edited.

(Margo D. Beller)

Finally, here's a long view of the tow path along the Delaware & Raritan Canal, a state park. Canals were how you shipped goods, at least before the railroads came along and made canals obsolete. The two main New Jersey canals were the D&R, much of which remains as a linear park, and the Morris Canal, much of which was filled in for residential and commercial "development" throughout its route. (One of the exceptions is the Morris Canal Park in Jersey City, where the canal emptied into the Hudson River. I frequently visited this park when I worked in the area and, yes, found lots of interesting birds.)

D&R Canal Park, Kingston, NJ, November 2023
(Margo D. Beller)

When the Cure Is Worse Than the Disease

Same overflow pond a year apart. In the top picture, from 2018, the pond is
not frozen but some of the trees near it were cut down. (Margo D. Beller)

I am lucky that not far from my home there are a number of parks of varying size. One of them is a linear park that was once a short-line railroad that failed. At one point there were plans to extend a major road through these woods but that failed, too. The resulting park is called Patriots Path because it was first formed in Morris County (the path has since been greatly expanded into several counties), once known as the "Birthplace of the Revolution" because of its proximity to Jockey Hollow, where Washington's troops encamped for two winters years before the better-known encampment at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania.

The path is under the jurisdiction of the county, so it is county workers who do the maintenance. Thus, I am going to blame the county for the seemingly haphazard destruction of trees along parts of this path because of a small menace called the emerald ash borer.

The borer is an insect that, like the Asian long-horned beetle, is invasive and likely came over in wood pallets or other wood products shipped here from abroad. The borer's destruction of ash trees has been well known for months but it was only in the last few weeks signs have gone up along the trail warning of work to be done in the coming days to keep any damage from spreading through the entire forest.

Warning signs (Margo D. Beller)

When that work was finally done and the men, saws and heavy machinery I'd seen were gone, I brought MH to one part of the path for a short walk along the flat, paved trail. What I saw was horrific.

2017 - overflow-created pond, frozen tight.
(Margo D. Beller)

Trees were cut down and the stumps left in the ground. The cut trees were tossed aside or dragged away from the path and left in piles. Why would the county cut down trees it feared would be invested with borers and then leave them there? Did someone think the winter cold would finish off the insects? Maybe it will, but the ugliness of leaving them on the ground to become months of eating pleasure for a plethora of bacteria and insects makes me very angry.

I can understand taking down trees to save a forest. What I can't understand is leaving the area ugly so it is devalued and thus more easily ignored by people who don't care or want to understand why forests are as important to have as ballfields, dog parks or a shopping mall.

A year before, when the wind chill was in the single digits, MH and I had walked this same part of the path and we marveled at how the overflow from earlier rains and the nearby Whippany River had created huge frozen ponds. This year has been particularly rainy so the ponds that formed were deep but definitely not frozen.

Either way, it seems no one cares about these woods, all they care about is killing trees that maybe - maybe - were invested with borers. These county people are no better than my neighbors who take down a 50-year-old, inconvenient tree because they fear it maybe - maybe - will fall on their house.

Two different views of the destruction, Dec. 31, 2018
(Margo D. Beller)

There is such a thing as forest management. I've seen it at work. You take down trees to open up the understory to other types of trees. Thoreau wrote about it when he noticed that in a forest of white pines, any open ground was soon filled with oak seedlings.

Patriots Path, like many other parks, is a bit of woods in a suburban environment. When not chopped down for a housing development it is affected by the pollution from cars, lawn chemicals and even fireplace wood smoke. Too many times I have seen woods along state roads covered with choking vines, usually poison ivy but also mile-a-minute and Virginia creeper. At some point the vines will shut out all light to the trees and they will die. The state sends out mowers to cut the roadside grass but no one notices, much less cares for, the trees. The system seems to be based on benign neglect.

To those areas that proclaim, "See? We have woods here that are protected!" I say, well, I guess that's better than wiping them out and putting in a road or ballfields. But if you don't take care of the land and remove the sick or fallen trees or the vines and other invasives, people are going to ignore the woods as just so much wallpaper. Too many times I have seen people using these natural resources as backdrops to walk the dog, make a phone call or talk to their friends. Maybe it relaxes them but to me they are not walking in the woods to get away from the pressures of modern life or even to look for birds and wildlife. It's just a prettier background than walking Fido on your neighbor's lawn.

Dec. 31, 2018 (Margo D. Beller)

Winter is an ugly enough season in New Jersey when the leaves are down and everything is gray. Today with MH, walking on Patriots Path the only birds I heard were the woodpeckers high in the remaining trees. Many of the shrubs that lined the path were either ripped up by the county tree cutters or flattened by their machinery, so the white-throated sparrows that hid in these shrubs are gone.

I am hoping for a heavy snow to cover this mess, and that someone does something to remove the dead trees in spring and make this park meaningful to those who walk the path when the tree leaves sprout and the wildflowers are in bloom.

Taking a Different Path

When I moved to Morris County, NJ., over two decades ago, the first big park I discovered was the Frelingheuysen Arboretum, a county park on land donated by one of the area's illustrious families that goes all the way back to colonial New Jersey. I walked the unblazed paths, saw quite a lot of birds and bought many plants for my garden at the annual sale.

(Margo D. Beller)

Not far from there is the Jacob Ford Mansion, part of the Morristown National Historic Site, where George Washington stayed during the winter of 1779-80 while his army was in what is now Jockey Hollow, a prelude to the better-known winter encampment at Valley Forge. Jacob Ford's land stretched all the way to the Whippany River, and along the river he had a powder mill - gunpowder, not flour for baking. We learned this the other day when I read of a planned tour down Patriots Path to the site of the mill.

I realized that if I went to the arboretum I could get to Patriots Path and the site on my own and from the other direction instead of taking the planned tour and thus spare MH and his balky knees. The tour would have people walking down a steep hill in back of the county historical society. I'd hiked up that hill years ago and didn't like it. I didn't recall any historic markers of the site. I resolved to go again.

But since the last time I've hiked the arboretum there have been many unfortunate changes. Storms, starting with Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and continuing through the nor'easters of this past March, damaged stately old trees where I'd see birds in spring. These trees have been removed, changing what had been shady areas into sun fields. The paths I've walked for years without problems are now blazed with yellow, green or red markers to make it easy on visitors, of which there are now a lot. The part of Patriots Path through the arboretum to the historical society along the Whippany River is blazed blue. When I last took this part of Patriots Path, you went through the woods. Now that is cut off and you have to use a different path around an open field. Several trails in the woods or along the Whippany River have been allowed to disappear in the grasses.

This was once a hiking trail (Margo D. Beller)

Even getting to this park has changed in recent years. Much of the woods along the multi-lane road have been torn down and replaced with shopping centers, creating more traffic and less of an incentive for me to travel the three miles here. (There are many other places for me to hike, including other parts of Patriots Path where I'm not risking my life among those hot to get to a mall or office park.)

When I got past the gate and started on Patriots Path I learned the condition of the path seems to be based on which property abuts it. The first section of the path, running behind an office park that has its own bricked walkway to it, is mowed grass. The next part, behind a garden apartment complex, was dirt, with branches down and roots to step over. Part of the path takes you along the edge of a parking lot, where the branches of trees and poison ivy hung low, forcing me on the hot asphalt. Then the path returned to the shady woods and down a hill where I discovered a giant downed tree I would have to somehow get over. I was too close to my destination to turn back so, with difficulty, I got over and continued along the difficult terrain. (I thought of MH back home and was glad he was not testing his knees here. How I'd be in the coming days would be another matter.)

Past the knotweed and other invasives, I got around another downed tree, carefully forded a dry culvert and then found two signs marking the powder mill site. One was obviously older and nailed to a tree. It must've been there when I'd last hiked this path. However, since then a newer sign had been put up by the historical society. Ahead of me was the steep hill leading to the historical society, whose part of Patriots Path had been cleared of debris, perhaps in anticipation of the coming tour. I took some pictures of the sign for MH, listened to the murmur of the river and a few birds, then went back the way I came. The path had been deserted during my travels because it was a weekday, and that had me slightly nervous. I could listen to the birds, including a calling yellow warbler, but many of the calls were hard to hear because of the din of continual traffic on nearby Route 287, one of New Jersey's major highways.

Whippany River (Margo D. Beller)

Back through the gate on the property of the arboretum, I was forced to travel along the edge of the woods and could only look with longing at where the old path once ran.

I am sure there were many reasons why the woody trail and the one along the river on the arboretum property were closed to hikers. Where the former river trail turns and heads back uphill are two major roads nearby, Route 287 and Hanover Ave. Perhaps in this terrorist-crazed world we live in someone determined a nutcase could do a lot of damage to these roads and thus ordered the path be erased. Or perhaps the arboretum didn't want to spend the money on mowing the path or other maintenance anymore.

I don't know. I do know that like a lot of the world I live in now, it is changing and not necessarily for the better.

Here are some of the other pictures from my travels:

This is the first, grassy part of Patriots Path leading away from the arboretum.

(Margo D. Beller)

This is the log I had to climb over. It is bigger than it looks.

(Margo D. Beller)

This is the historic marker for the mill, my destination on this hike.

(Margo D. Beller)