The Fyke Nature Association is pleased to announce the upcoming arrival of the first-ever Celery Farm brochure and map!

The free four-color brochure features a trail map (by Deedee Burnside), a 1955 aerial photo of the site when it was used as farmland, and Frequently Asked Questions (and, equally important, Frequently Answered Questions!).

Photos were provided by Jerry Barrack, Barbara Dilger, Stiles Thomas and Seymour Drakes. They include a Red Fox, Osprey, the two Wood Ducks at left, and much more.

The brochure will be available in September, and we hope to have it available for the Sept. 8 walk.

You'll wonder how you ever walked around the Celery Farm without it. From now on, I should  be able to find my way home again.

Funding of this brochure was donated in memory of John Brewster.

DeKorte Park in the Meadowlands is a tad far afield from the Celery Farm, but I just wanted to give folks a heads-up that there is an incredibly cooperative young Tricolored Heron and several Least Bitterns. 

Water levels in the Shorebird Pool have been lowered and we are getting all sorts of shorebirds. (Maybe that's why it's called the Shorebird Pool.)

I do the Meadowlands Nature Blog for the N.J. Meadowlands Commission, and I have been posting plenty of photos and sightings there. (There's also a plug for my upcoming book for the commission.) Link is here.

Some very cool news for folks who like to walk the Celery Farm.

Marsh Warden Mike Limatola and I are doing our first-Saturday-of-the-month walks again this fall -- on Sept. 8 and Oct. 6 at 8 a.m.

The September walk will be followed by an optional half-hour tour of the historic Fell House nearby.

We'll have a spotting scope or two, but bring binoculars if you have them.

Note: We suggest wearing long sleeves, long pants, socks and shoes to reduce the chances of ticks.

The 90-minute walk, open to nature lovers of all ages and abilities, are designed to acquaint more people with the 107-acre Celery Farm  -- and the 250-year-old Fell House.

The walks begin at the end of Green Way (a right turn off of northbound Franklin Turnpike, just before Crescent Avenue).  (Directions are in the left-hand column.)

The walks are sponsored by the Fyke Nature Association, which helps maintain the Celery Farm, and the Concerned Citizens of Allendale, which saved the Fell House and its 2.8-acre property from becoming a townhouse development.

E-mail Jim Wright here to rsvp or get more info. Check this blog, celeryfarm.net, for updates, last-minute weather advisories for the walk, and directions to the Celery Farm, Green Way and the Fell House.

We hope to see you on Sept. 8. Listing follows.

Don Torino, a leader on our Meadowlands Commission/Bergen County Audubon Society's regular walks, write a regular column for the wildnewjersey.tv blog.

Last week's column is on how a love of nature keeps you young -- and mentions the Meadowlands:

"Some of my fondest memories of old friends and family members (Some that have moved on or are no longer with me) always seem to drift back to times we spent as kids. Summers when we stayed out from dawn till dusk in the Meadowlands, as long our parents had to send other kids out to look for us. ...

"The memories are ones I think nature was kind enough to give to us. They are the memories that makes us smile when no one is looking, ones that remind us despite our age that the child that always loved nature it still in us, it has never left."

The link is here.