A SHELTERING STREAM

      During the extreme, prolonged cold spell of late January to mid-February, 2026, a stream of fresh water in a tiny, remnant salt marsh on Long Beach Barrier Island, between the Atlantic Ocean and Barnegat Bay, which borders the New Jersey mainland, became a sheltering haven for a few kinds of ducks and geese.  I have been watching that little stream and salt marsh, through the seasons for the last few years, via a live camera there and our home computer screen.  A variety of water-living birds come to that small waterway to drink fresh water, including in winter.  But I never saw so much waterfowl on that little waterway as during that period of extreme cold when Barnegat Bay froze shut.  Those lovely ducks and geese added beauty to that little stream.   

     The stream remained open in places because of the slow-moving current in it, and lots of attractive waterfowl milling about on it.  Sometimes that running, little waterway was full of black ducks, mallards and Canada geese, and a few each of northern pintail ducks, green-winged teal ducks, and two adult male hooded merganser ducks, all sheltering from the cold wind at once on the stream, which is bordered by tall, dense, wind-blocking phragmites and shrubbery.              

     About a hundred black ducks dominated that little stream between feeding forays elsewhere, for most of three weeks.  Good numbers of the robust black ducks usually winter in Jersey salt marshes.  But I suppose the still water in those marshes froze over, which chased out some of the black ducks.           Over a dozen each of mallards and Canada geese also huddled daily on that sheltering, little waterway, adding diversity to the black duck dominance.  Though sheltering there in small numbers, it's still more mallards and Canadas, at once, then normal in winter. 

     Every winter, for the last several winters, I noticed that over 80 Atlantic brant geese have come to the mouth of this freshwater stream, where it flows into Barnegat Bay, to drink and bathe like other water bird species have.  And they were coming to that small waterway this winter, until the Deep Freeze.  Then they disappeared, except for a few individuals.  I don't know where they went when Barnegat Bay was almost completely frozen shut, but when that bay opened again, the brant were back to the mouth of the stream to drink and bathe.    

     Many brant and black ducks winter in Jersey's extensive salt marshes.  There they feed on grasses, aquatic vegetation and other plant material in salt marshes, and fields on the mainland.   

     The wildlife in that little stream in a tiny salt marsh on Long Beach Barrier Island has always been interesting to me through the years.  But for three weeks this winter, it was exceptionally intriguing.  It showed how certain species of life change their habits to cope with varying weather and environmental changes.   

                       

   

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