My Trip to South Jersey
That’s New Jersey, the state on the Atlantic coast of North America, not the island in the English Channel.
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- The composition made by the blue sky, the red and white sign, and the yellow painted cement things caught my eye as we rode by.
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- The beginning of the trail. We saw what my sister believes was coyote scat on the path. There are indeed coyotes in the region.
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- I wanted to take a close up of the soil. The sandy soil is one of the reasons the area was not originally heavily settled. There was some industry in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and several ghost towns dot the area. One industry was glass making.”Down in southern New Jersey they make glass. By day and by night, the fires burn on in Millville and bid the sand let in the light.” – Carl Sandburg
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- This orb weaver spider caught my eye due to its very large web. There were quite a lot of spider webs visible, but this was one of the few spiders which was close enough to photograph.
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- I’m not sure, but I believe this is a Pine Warbler. They are common in the Pine Barrens.
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- Although this one was sitting in a deciduous tree at the moment I snapped the photo, several similar looking birds had been flitting about in the tops of the pine trees.
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- The region has Morella caroliniensis (Southern Bayberry), Morella pennsylvanica (Northern Bayberry), and Morella cerifera (Wax Myrtle). They look very similar to me. I think this is one of the three, but I’m not sure.
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- A flycatcher of some sort. At first I tentatively identified it as a Willow Flycatcher, but that bird is rare in the Pine Barrens. It is more likely an Eastern Kingbird.
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- I wanted to identify this, but I’m afraid I got a bit burned out looking things up.
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- This is a Common Yellowthroat.
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- The year 2016, I learned, the 100th anniversary of the domestication of the blueberry.
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- Highbush Blueberries are common in the area. This isn’t a great picture, but it gives an idea that beneath the pine trees is a dense understory of shrubs, many of which are blueberries – blueberries as far as the eye can see.
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- The photo doesn’t convey the size of this cobweb. It was pretty impressive.
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- I was very happy to see an American Red Squirrel for the first time in my life.
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- I wish I could have gotten a better picture of the little fellow before he ran away.
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- Here is an Eastern Towhee.
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- This is a Juvenile American Robin. We also saw plenty of birds that we see regularly in the backyard, including Titmice, Chickadees, two types of Nuthatches and Blue Jays.
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- A shack in Whitesbog. Whitesbog is where the blueberry was domesticated by Elizabeth White.
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- This is a former cranberry bog. The green was just an amazing color.
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- On the other side of the road were cranberries. The water table in the area is quite high and the woods are laced with bogs and marshes. Cranberries are still cultivated there.
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- One of the early industries, which has since disappeared, was iron production, which was derived from bog iron, “form of impure iron deposit that develops in bogs or swamps by the chemical or biochemical oxidation of iron carried in solution.” (Wikipedia) The iron and a high tannin content from the American White Cedars cause the water to be the color of tea.
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- A Barn Swallow in flight. It’s hard to get a good photograph of these birds because they fly so quickly back and forth.
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- The area has several types of asters.
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- I’m not sure if these were Symphyotrichum novae-angliae (New England Aster), Symphyotrichum novi-belgii (New York Aster), or perhaps Symphyotrichum patens (Late Purple Aster). I’m leaning towards the New York Aster, but I’m prepared to be corrected.
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- Clethra alnifolia, or Sweetpepperbush, is common here.
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- Like the asters, there are many types of goldenrod. I’m guessing Solidago odora.
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- When I was searching for what kind, I found a blog post where someone had written, “This is not a weed!” Despite its weedy appearance, it is a native wildflower which attracts butterflies and bees.
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- This is Nymphaea odorata, American White Waterlily.
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- This is a Pearl Crescent butterfly on top of an Orange Milkwort (Polygala lutea).
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- And what is a trip to New Jersey if you don’t come home with fresh veggies. The corn was excellent. I don’t understand why Europeans turn their nose up at it.
Okay, that was quite a lot of work. My apologies for any errors.
fojap 
These are great shots
Thank-you. How are you doing this morning?
I have a cold and a slight cough, driving me crazy at the moment but I think it will disappear in a few days.
Glad to see you back.
Sorry to hear about the cough. I picked on up when I was in San Diego. Happily, I’m over it now. Hopefully, yours will clear up quickly.
I saw a doc yesterday, given a tonne of medication. Hopefully it disappears by the weekend.
Great pics. I’ve been to Southern New Jersey before. It’s easy to forget that with all of the suburban areas and signs of modern human life there’s still (what we think of as) nature if you look for it.
Thanks for stopping by.