Nature Archives - Page 3 of 3

High Point State Park, New Jersey

I’ve been in New Jersey a long time, but had never made it to High Point State Point. Up in the northwest corner and very close to both New York and Pennsylvania, the park surrounds, not surprisingly, the highest point in New Jersey. The obelisk was built in 1930 and is 220 feet high.

The land was donated to the state by Anthony and Susie Kuser in 1923. The Kusers, were, among many other things, ardent birders. In the early twentieth century, Anthony Kuser encouraged the (futile) search for surviving passenger pigeons by offering a reward for proof of their existence in the wild. The reward was never paid.

View from the base of the High Point memorial. Source: TCM

Cedar Swamp Trail at High Point State Park. Despite the name, the trail loops around a bog, not a swamp. Source: TCM

The Dryden Kuser Natural Area is within High Point State Park The Atlantic White Cedar Bog here is, at an elevation of 1,500 feet, thought to be highest bog of its kind in the world.

Outside/In on the Darién Gap

Here’s a podcast about the Darién Gap that’s NOT about somebody trying to drive through it (but also, tell me more about that drive north of Montreal) .

There are places on the map where roads end.
The Darién Gap, or el Tapon del Darién, is one of them. It’s a stretch of rainforest in southern Panama, right on the edge of Central and South America. From a globetrotter’s perspective, the Darién Gap might seem to exist mostly as an obstacle to tourists dreaming of a truly epic road trip from Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego.
But, while a road is one way for movement, it’s not the only way to get somewhere. What happens, or does not happen, in a place without roads?
Outside/In produced by Sam Evans-Brown with Justine Paradis and Taylor Quimby.

More Birdfeeder Birds

That Bald Cardinal is Back…

…and he brought his family. The female Northern Cardinal also appears to be losing the feathers on her head. So I learned that every year people report seeing these balding cardinals. I now like to think of them as vulture cardinals, but some people call them lizard-heads. Ornithologists generally think this is normal yearly molting, although in some cases, the cardinals might be suffering from head mites, lice, or some similar parasite. I’m inclined to think the original cardinal, a regular visitor to the birdfeeder, is not just going through a normal molt. It’s been well over a month since I first noticed his condition and his other feathers are normal and bright red. The female may be undergoing a regular molt while I’m guessing the third bird, shown below with duller red feathers and a lot of brown, is a juvenile.