Disposal Road

10 weeks.
10 weeks a Northern Shrike has been hanging around Disposal Road in Lyndhurst, NJ.
Finally we drove out there this morning and  hung around from around 9:45 to 1:30 this afternoon. Naturally, no shrike.

Only New Jersey could have a road named Disposal. Its name refers to the the no-longer active landfills through which is runs. That big mound behind the fence is one of them. At least they don't call it Disposal Avenue, or Disposal Boulevard.

They are trying to change the name to Amvets Way in reference to the giant, incongruous carillon that the Amvets organization has built at about the halfway point on the road, overlooking the impoundments of the Meadowlands Commission's DeKorte Park. The carillon chimes every 15 minutes and sounds remarkably like Big Ben (or the intro music to Wall Street Week) on the 1/2 and 1/4 hours. On the hour is plays a long, and to me, unrecognizable tune.

To answer the obvious question, "Why would anyone build a carillon on a potholed road in the middle of abandoned dumps?" the short answer is that they got snookered. Great plans were set forth for the dumps: golf courses, condo developments, shopping centers. However, the company that was to undertake all this development in exchange for the usual unconscionable tax breaks, figured out that capping the toxic dumps was a lot more difficult that it was supposed and backed out of the deal, leaving the carillon in an existential position similar to the tree falling in the forest with no one around. However, happily for the carillon builders, birders abound, like us, looking for a Northern Shrike. (Why didn't we take a photo of the carillon? We must have been too distraught at not finding the bird.)

We did see a lot of Northern Harriers hovering over the dump (lot of good eating in there), and a couple of Red-tailed Hawks and what might have been a Merlin speeding by. In the middle of the day we drove a short distance to a place called Kearny Marsh  and there we found one Common Moorhen, which is a rare bird for NJ, so that sort of made the trip worthwhile.

Truthfully, even though we didn't find our target bird it was fun to wander in The Meadowlands, which is criss-crossed by The Turnpike and the Pulaski Skyway and off ramps and on ramps and railroads and jets zooming in and out of Newark and find as many birds as we did. When I ride NJ Transit I always look into the ditches along the tracks and usually, especially in the warmer months, find egrets and herons. Pretty amazing what birds will put up with--I couldn't stand being around the carillon but it apparently doesn't bother the shrike. Or maybe it finally just got sick of the noise too and took off to its northern home.

The lists for the day:

Richard W. Dekorte Park

Observation date:     2/20/10

Notes:     Mostly on Disposal Road, unsuccessfully looking for the shrike.

Number of species:     15

Canada Goose     10

Mallard     30

Northern Shoveler     1

Northern Pintail     2

Northern Harrier     6

Red-tailed Hawk     2

Ring-billed Gull     X

Herring Gull     2

Great Black-backed Gull     1

Mourning Dove     3

American Robin     1

Northern Mockingbird     4

Song Sparrow     5

White-throated Sparrow     5

Northern Cardinal     2

Kearny Marsh

Observation date:     2/20/10

Number of species:     6

Canada Goose     25

Mallard     1

Northern Shoveler     1

Common Moorhen     1

American Coot     12

American Crow     2