Branch Brook Park

The state of New Jersey seems to be the butt of many national jokes, and the city of Newark even more so. Yet Newark, NJ,contains some amazing places. Among them is Branch Brook Park, an amazing greenspace designed by the firm of Frederick Law Olmstead, the designers of New York's famed Central Park. It was their vision that gave Branch Brook its lovely naturalistic feel.  At the park's south end it is overlooked by the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart, lending an almost European feel to the park.

 In the spring the park is a riot of pinks and whites as the cherries blossom. Branch Brook Park has more cherry trees than the famed Tidal Basin in Washington, DC, and has a wonderful annual festival.

 As the cherries blossom and spring is in the air the cricket players take to the park, also lending a slightly "foreign" air to one of New Jersey's finest parks.

Newark is not a place most people think of as a birding hotspot, yet it has several fine birding locations, and Branch Brook Park is the chief among them. Of course it has its share of "urban birds" like the Canada geese, mallards, rock piegons, starlings, and house sparrows seen in parks all over. But if you visit the park at all times of the year, and keep your eyes open, you can see an amazing number of birds..

  Ospreys soar over the ponds searching for a nice fish dinner.

Red-tailed hawks make the park their home also. Plenty for them to eat here!

  The starlings are ubiquitous, but keep your eyes peeled anyway. That dark bird on the ground may actually be an eastern kingbird.

 Great egrets, great blue herons, black-crowned night herons - all of them can be seen at the park if you go there at the right time.

 As I've mentioned before I have a special passion for ducks, so I always loved the winters when ducks would appear in the park. The ruddy ducks often hung out at the south end near the cathedral.

Northern shovelers were also there in abundance, usually closer to the middle of the park where the geese and mallards tended to hang out.

The reeds lining the ponds and brooks would be filled with red-winged blackbirds.

The park was a driving route for me primarily, from one end of the park to the other at a slow pace, pulling over from time to time to investigate certain favorite areas. There were spots to see red-bellied woodpeckers investigating dead trees for possible nesting sites. In the winter there were lots of song sparrows, white-throated sparrows, dark-eyed juncos. Wood ducks came here, and hooded and common mergansers, cormorants, coots, vireos, swallows...birds of all sorts. Not one of them bothered by the fact that they were in Newark, NJ. :-)