The Great Swamp

When people think of a swamp, they think of a place thick with vegetation, solitude, stagnant water, and slithery animals.  Happily, the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge has an abundance of all these things.

Placed as it is in the middle of suburban New Jersey, this is an unlikely kind of wilderness.  Though you're not more than a few miles from several major highways, as you explore it, it's easy to imagine that you're the last person in all the world.  Bald eagles, golden eagles, and black vultures carve gyres through the sky.  The trees and wetlands ring with birdsong and the calls of frogs.  Snakes thread their way through branches and turtles blithely paddle among water lilies.

And to think that they almost built Newark Airport here.

I hadn't been to the swamp since the middle of April, and it was remarkable how the forest's canopy had filled in in these few weeks.  Direct sunlight was a rarity in most places.  This made it more difficult to spot snakes, who so love to bask in the sun by the water.

There are more birds now than there were a few weeks ago, but they're easy to hear and hard to see in the thick of the swamp.  This time, I could only spot a sandpiper, mallard, and a few Canada Geese.  A month ago I saw a Great Blue Heron in the distance; skirting above the tops of reeds with its huge wings. I don't have much of a zoom on my camera, but I'd love to see one of them up close.  I found a duck's nest back then, too, with four yellow eggs.  The eggs are gone now, and I hope that means that the ducklings are all happily swimming somewhere among the budding lily pads.

Green Frog (seriously, this is its official name)

Northern Water Snake