Cedar Crest	UPDATED: Tuesday, January 31, 2006
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Cedar Crest Birders Keep Eagle Eyes

Posted on Friday, July 01, 2005

Seen at Cedar Crest

Thirty-seven different bird species have been spotted at Cedar Crest, whose 130-acre campus abuts the woodsy Mountainside Park in Pompton Plains. Here are some of the more interesting varieties.

Red-tailed Hawk
Large, stout and broad-winged, with a distinctive red tail
Snowy Owl
The heaviest of owls, yet a nimble flyer. Nearly all white as an adult.
Mockingbird
Long tail and legs, slender body, white wing patch. Sings and pretty song.
Wild Turkey
Very large, heavy and dark, it is capable of short flights.
Starling
A pointed bill, square tail. White spots give way to deepening colors when breeding.
Junco
A small, slender sparrow with white tail feathers. Also called a snowbird.

By Jeff Ostroth
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

As Dottie Way tells it, one morning she got a phone call from her neighbor and fellow bird watcher Reneta Lekanda.

“Come quick!” said Reneta. “There’s a snowy owl out here.”

“What?!” exclaimed Dottie as she ran out her door.

Reneta recalls that “It was right outside my window, on the roof of the next building. At first I thought it was a gull, and then I did a double-take when it moved. It was a snowy owl! And it flew down and landed on a car and stayed there a few minutes.”

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That was just long enough for Dottie to get over to Reneta’s home in time to see it for herself. “Then it took off and flew right over our heads,” says Dottie. “It was very exciting.” And for Reneta, a bird watcher for over 30 years, it was the first time she had ever spotted a snowy owl.

Bird Watchers Club

Bird watching is one of Cedar Crest’s longest-standing activities. “My husband and I have been involved for most of our married life,” says Dottie. She and David Way moved to Cedar Crest from a nearby house in Pompton Plains when the campus first opened in August 2001. It took them no time at all to get a bird watching club going.

The club currently has about 20 members and meets on the third Friday of every month.

“Dottie is a very good leader,” says Reneta. “She always has books and pictures that we look at, and recordings of bird calls. The club also plans trips that it goes on. Then everybody tells what they saw in the past month, on trips and also around the campus.”

Thirty-seven Varieties

“Over the time we have been at Cedar Crest, we have seen thirty-seven different varieties of birds,” says Dottie.

Among those mentioned by her and Reneta are starlings, sparrows, cardinals, juncos (a.k.a. snowbirds), kinglets, a warbler, wild turkeys, mockingbirds and even blue birds—unusual given Cedar Crest’s hillside setting. “Blue birds are usually out in farm fields,” says Dottie.

Hawk egg

“One of our people found an egg on her balcony, and she sent it over to me in a box,” says Dottie. “I compared it with pictures in my reference books and discovered it was a red-tailed hawk egg. We do have a red-tailed hawk here, so that was amazing.”

Wasn’t it unusual to find an egg just sitting on a balcony? “It’s the same kind of bird as the one you probably heard about in New York City,” says Dottie. “They do have a habit of laying eggs in strange places.”

A neighbor who volunteers in the local school system brought the egg to her class. “The children were fascinated,” says Dottie.

Bird Watching Trips

Dottie says the club tries to plan trips to different locations. “Sandy Hook is a very good place because it’s on the water and on the migratory flyway,” which runs from the artic to South America.

Another great place—and quite close to Cedar Crest—is the Garrett Mountain Reservation in West Paterson. The Newark Star-Ledger called it “not only one of the best migrant passerine traps in New Jersey, but in the entire United States and Canada.”

There’s also the Raptor Trust in Somerset County, a nationally known rehabilitation center for injured and orphaned hawks, eagles, owls, and other wild birds. And in Bergen County, there’s the Celery Farm nature preserve in Allendale.

“The whole of New Jersey is on the flyway,” says Dottie. “It’s a big bird watching state.”

To find out more about the opportunities to pursue your interests and Cedar Crest, call Helen Waldrop today for an appointment: 973-839-9377 or toll-free at 1-800-301-8722.