SUMMER WILDLIFE AT BARNEGAT BAY
Barnegat Bay is a 42-mile-long, salty backwater off the Atlantic Ocean between the New Jersey mainland and Long Beach Island, a barrier island of sand and housing. From mid-May to the end of June, 2025, I had been watching a thin, remnant salt marsh on the island along the eastern shore of the bay, and wildlife in that marsh, through a live camera mounted high on an osprey nest and our computer screen. And, although there is lots of human activities in the marsh and on the barrier island that disrupts wildlife, that little marsh shows the value of every little natural habitat to a variety of wildlife, no matter how small or where the habitat is. Early in April of this year, a pair of ospreys settled on the stick cradle on a built and erected nesting platform some twenty feet high on a pole. The female laid three eggs in that nursery and the pair took turns brooding those eggs. But during stormy weather, the mal...