{"id":1062,"date":"2007-06-11T02:34:00","date_gmt":"2007-06-11T02:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/?p=1062"},"modified":"2014-10-01T03:33:19","modified_gmt":"2014-10-01T03:33:19","slug":"memorial-walk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/?p=1062","title":{"rendered":"Memorial walk"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>There are more than a million acres of Pine Barrens in NJ and I\u2019m determined to wander through them all! Today\u2019s odyssey was to the Brendan T. Byrne State Forest<\/a> in Burlington County. I tagged along on a memorial walk sponsored by NJ Audubon for a birding buddy who passed away this past winter. He loved the Pine Barrens and was very knowledgeable about the typical flora and fauna of the area.<\/p>\n

My main focus today was on botany, but we also saw a few really great birds. It was a treat to be out in the woods with people who know wildflowers. I learned plenty and took enough photos to make your eyes roll in boredom for the next few weeks. Every trip there reveals some new treasure.<\/p>\n

We spent an hour or two exploring the white cedar swamp and had a nice long look at a Barred Owl<\/a> perched way back in the swamp. That was a first! I\u2019ve heard their call a number of times, but have never actually seen a Barred Owl. Sweet!<\/p>\n

Another place we visited had Red-headed Woodpeckers<\/a> \u2013 another treat! I\u2019ve only seen them once before and was impressed with the gorgeous pattern of their wings in flight. I wish they were more common.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been a lot of talk in the local newspapers about this year\u2019s gypsy moth invasion<\/a>. I\u2019d re\"\"<\/a>ad that the spraying program had been stepped up because they were so bad, but wondered what all the fuss was about. Well, I got a sense for it today and it\u2019s really dreadful. Whole areas of the forest are just decimated and the caterpillars cover everything \u2013 if you\u2019re quiet enough you can hear them eating \u2013 honest! The immediate area surrounding the state forest headquarters was as black and leafless as if a fire had gone through. I suppose the cuckoos will be happy with so much to eat, but it was sad to see.<\/p>\n

So\u2026 I\u2019m off to sort through my pics from today and hope you all had an enjoyable weekend. There\u2019ll be more to come from the Barrens.
<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are more than a million acres of Pine Barrens in NJ and I\u2019m determined to wander through them all! Today\u2019s odyssey was to the Brendan T. Byrne State Forest in Burlington County. I tagged along on a memorial walk sponsored by NJ Audubon for a birding buddy who passed away this past winter. He … Continue reading Memorial walk<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}