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Come for a journey along the Jersey shore with naturalist and ecologist Joanna Burger! In these deeply felt, closely observed personal essays and field sketches, Burger invokes the intertwined lives of naturalist and wild creatures at the ever-changing edge of ocean and land. Discover with her the delicate mating dances of fiddler crabs, the dangers to piping plovers, the swarming of fish into the bays and estuaries, the trilling notes of Fowler's toads, and the subtle green-grays of salt marshes. Joanna Burger knows the shore through all its seasons - the first moment of spring when the herring gulls arrive on ice-gouged salt marshes, the end of spring when the great flocks of shorebirds come to feed on horseshoe crab eggs at Cape May, the summer when the peregrine hunts its prey, the fall when the migrations of hawks and monarch butterflies attract watchers from around the world, and the depths of winter when a lone snowy owl sweeps across snow-covered dunes and frozen bay.
List of contents
Where did the shore come from?
Birds on salt marshes and beaches
Sale hay, glasswort, and other commercial ventures
Is global climate change a threat?
Oystercatchers and Willets along the shore
The spring chorus: Fowler's toads at Little Beach
Fiddler crabs at Cheesequake
Cattle egrets on Islajo Island
Killifish move in
Horseshoe crabs on Delaware Bay
Shorebirds along Delaware Bay
Laughing gulls at Stone Harbor marshes
Civilized mallards at Manahawkin
Common terns and skimmers at Barnegat Bay
Piping plovers at Corson's Inlet
Peregrines, ospreys, and harriers: diurnal predators
Mink, mussels, and ghost crabs
Diamondback terrapins at Little Beach
Mosquitoes: the New Jersey state bird
The shorebirds return
Migrating monarchs at Cape May
Hawks in Cape May
Nocturnal wanderings at Higbee Beach
Birding at Point Liberte: in search of a snowy owl
Snow geese and Brant at Brigantine and Barnegat Bay
A Killdeer's plaintive call on the Rutgers campus
Herring gulls: newcomers to the Jersey shore
Herons and egrets at Barnegat Bay and along the Kills
Appendix: Scientific names mentioned in the book
About the author
Joanna Burger is a professor of biological sciences at Rutgers University. Her seven books include Before and After an Oil Spill: The Arthur Kill (Rutgers University Press). She lives in Somerset, New Jersey, with her family on their nature preserve.
