The Nature of the Meadowlands - With author Jim Wright

Rutgers Cooperative Extension

Join PROJECT MOVE-OUT: free bulk waste recycling initiative for Rutgers students living in New Brunswick

Rutgers University and the City of New Brunswick are partnering in Project Move Out to recover discarded furniture, applianc...

Butterfly Park is ready for butteflies and people!

Thanks to the many volounteers - youth council members, community garden members and other residents, all the flower beds are mulched, the paths are cleaned and the park looks beautiful!

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Councilman Jim Wendell found a large female as she came out to the road on her way to the pools. His son Matthew found many spring peeper and carfuly removed them from the road.

The rain that star...

Beekman Road is likely to be closed tonight with the warm rain expected for this afternoon and evening. We are monitoring the weather closely. While we suspect that the salamander migration to the pools is complete, it is possible there could be some stragglers, or some non-breeding wanderers (not every individual in the population breeds every year) or even some movement back across the road to the summering habitat. But there may also be frog movement to the pools and in the surround...

I remember the first time I saw a tadpole in mid-metamorphosis. It still had that small fishy mouth, and swimming tail…and then these strange little legs sticking out. I had studied all that in books, but to see it happening right in front of me was simply mesmerizing. How amazing that a living thing can so completely change its body! We can’t do that!

Since then, I’ve compiled a bucket list of nature experiences that I want to have. I want to see a Peregrine Falcon kn...

For 10 years, my daughter Hannah has spent many raw rainy nights on Beekman Road during the salamander migration, always with a big smile on her face. She has been in the vernal pools countless times and with a pair of waders on is in the middle before I've even reached the edge. It's a special place for her and walking the road or being in the pools together has always been a very special time that we've been able to share. She was home from...

It's hard to find a better word for last night than, WOW! Everything came together perfectly, weather, salamanders, frogs and people for a spectacular night on Beekman Road. During the day, above normal temperatures combined with heavy rain setting the stage for what we hoped would be a big night. And for anyone that came out, it would have been very hard to be disappointed. We were a little concerned around 5pm when the rain tapered off and th...

Beekman Road will be closed tonight. As we have noted over and over in these posts, nature is happily unpredictable and with each passing year we learn more and more about our migration and the triggers for movement.

With the warm humid temperatures last night and light rain very early this morning there wasa significant movement of spotted salamanders and frogs. While I was expecting some movement, I was surprise...

We expect that Beekman Road will be closed tomorrow night. Forecasts have coalesced around an area of heavy rain and above normal temperatures beginning in the early morning hours Tuesday (around 4am right now) and continuing all day until dark. This is exactly the kind of weather we look for to trigger the migration. We can't guarantee anything, but the warm temperatures over the weekend and again today coupled with significant rain tomorrow sure look good. Since weather forecasts are simply...

The recent road closing attracted lots of attention from the news media.  Although the salamanders did not move on the nights the road was closed, the story of the East Brunswick Amphibian Protection Project was featured in news articles and videos. To see some of the articles and videos aobut the project since it started in 2005 -

We've had a few false starts over the past two weeks with the weather not panning out as forecast, but our eyes are on Tuesday night right now. If the forecast holds and I was a betting man (I'm not), I'd double down on Tuesday night for the salamander migration to occur. Of course, the odds are always in favor of the House and even sure hands sometimes lose, but the forecast between now and then really looks good to trigger movement. Yesterday was beautiful and warm. All the snow melted and ...

Join at the East Brunswick Farmers Market, April 20th from 10am to 2pm at the East Brunswick Cultural Arts Center. 

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In the immortal words of Agent Maxwell Smart, last night we "Missed it by that much". If the temperature had been just 6 or 7 degrees warmer, we might just have had some movement. The rain actually caught me a bit off guard because I didn't expect it as early or as heavy as it turned out to be. I had checked NOAA early in the morning and saw a chance of light rain or snow showers and then a change to a heavy wet snow overnight. But w...

I think the Magic 8 Ball says it all for today. If I could find my Ouija Board that might help too. As we have said many times, predicting salamander migrations is difficult. Migration requires a combination of weather and ecological mechanisms. Yesterday I read an excellent paper on spotted salamander migration triggers: The effects of temperature and precipitation on the breeding migration of the spotted salamande...

It's Salamander Migration Quiz time - This should be very easy to answer for anyone that was on Beekman Road last week and that has been following along with these posts. Okay, so here is the quiz question: "What do the following all have in common? Pepto Bismol, Rolaids, Tums, Pepcid, Mylanta, Nexium..." If you answered, "they are all needed by anyone trying to predict the salamander migration this year", you are correct!

Well we finally made it to March and despite the very cold temperatures last night, spring is really close. Snowdrops are blooming in my yard, a few male red-winged blackbirds are on territory, silver maple buds are swollen and daffodils and hyacinths are poking up through the ground. The only thing we could use now are some migrating spotted salamanders and nice loud choruses of spring peepers! So when will we see the salamanders and hear...

Although we can't wait to finally see spotted salamanders and spring peepers and chorus frogs and green frogs (well, you get the picture) cross Beekman Road and migrate to their vernal breeding pools, this cold dry spell is exactly the weather respite we needed after trying to make the difficult predictions last week. It gives us time to regroup, get some sleep and to stop checking NOAA and Weather.com and WeatheUunderground every 5 minutes.  

As anyone knows that came ...