It was because of this endeavor that I learned not to put wet shoes in the oven to dry in time for Sunday church service. In winter, we’d ice skate between the tussock grass and swamp maples and capture spotted turtles swimming beneath the ice. It was named for the crossed drainage ditches dug by the mosquito commission that we (the swamp’s self-appointed guardians) were obligated to dam every spring to keep the swamp properly flooded. I write this article so that this precious storehouse of lore may not pass into obscurity.īig X Swamp was a mere quarter-mile from home but a slog in the spring. It occurs to me that as the only surviving member of the Explorers Club, as we neighborhood kids called ourselves, I may be the only person alive who still recalls such hallowed points of discovery as “Big X Swamp,” where the Mallards nested “Bee Hive Hill,” where the screech-owl lived in the hollow old beech tree and “Island Eight,” in the third brickyard pond, where the Canada Geese nested in 1957. The only rule in the 1950s and ’60s was to be “home for supper.” Otherwise, my time was my own, and from the age of 7, I was free to wander as far as “the ponds,” a quarter- to half-mile from home. The “Big Woods” were bisected by a powerline cut we called “the Meadows.” Beyond were the three “Brickyard Ponds” and beyond that, several thousand acres of forest and wetlands known as “Troy Meadows.” In sum, this was my playground and bird laboratory. Adjacent to my parents’ rockpile was several hundred acres of publicly owned hardwood forest in early stages of succession, with red maple, pin oak, and white oak dominating. Ask any of the kids who had to clear them by hand so their dads could have the flat, green lawns suburban homeowners dream of. It sits atop the eutrophic remains of glacial Lake Passaic and precisely where, I estimate, the retreating Laurentide ice sheet dumped its biggest load of rocks. To save you a Google search, Whippany is located about 25 miles west of Manhattan.
My journey as a birdwatcher (the term “birder” had not been coined yet) began in the woods and overgrown fields behind my parents’ ranch house in Whippany, New Jersey. Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Print this Article Share to Email
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