Stockton's Natural World Galleries

Some Species First Two Walks WAN 2009 : Here are the quiz photos from 2/9/09 of some species seen on our first two walks of the semester. Can you remember their names? (If not, get out your Boyd book for a quick review.) Note: Mallory G. took photos on our 2nd walk, and I'll hope to add some of those too, if Mallory is willing to pass along.

Some Species First Two Walks WAN 2009

Last Walk & Some Last Photos GNM 1053 Fall 2008 :

Last Walk & Some Last Photos GNM 1053 Fall 2008

A Pygmy Plains Primer 10-31-08 : Some photos from our trip on 10-31-08 & some older photos to guide and test your understanding of the Pygmy Plains & NJPB fire ecology. How many Qs can you answer here? For more about recent fires here, go to Wikipedia

A Pygmy Plains Primer 10-31-08

Cranberries, Chatsworth/Harrisville Rd, Oct 2008 & Nov 2007 : Cranberries are harvested along this road, every October/November, an eye-catching demo of an old-fashioned industry, with few modern gimmicks added. Here are some photos from Friday 10/31/08 and a trip in November 2007 by my Pine Barrens class.

Cranberries, Chatsworth/Harrisville Rd, Oct 2008 & Nov 2007

Port Republic Visit 10-10-08 : Some photos to help you review our off-campus trip on 10-10-08 and also to help you think about the question: why did Port Republic survive the 19th century when so many NJPB towns failed?

Port Republic Visit 10-10-08

Interim Exam 10-1-08 : Some species seen on our first four walks -- some easy to ID, some not so easy. How many can you ID?

Interim Exam 10-1-08

Dark Path Walk II (9-19-08) : We walked out the Dark Path a little farther today, almost to Upper Lake. Did your team manage to ID any (most?) of these? I put in a couple of extra photos (not taken Friday) for helpful views. The organisms appear in (approximately) the sequence they appear in Boyd. How many can you ID?

Dark Path Walk II (9-19-08)

Dark Path Walk 9-12-08 : Here's a selection of photos from our second walk of the semester, arranged in the sequence they (or their group) appears in our field guide. Most can be ID'd to species, but in a couple of cases, the species is not illustrated in Boyd and you must settle for naming the group. Hey, Mr. Boyd, why didn't you illustrate everything? (What pages in the book give his answer to that?)

Dark Path Walk 9-12-08

Lighted Path Walk 9-8-08 : Here are some shots from our walk today (9/8/08) along the Lighted Path (and a couple of other photos for extra tips). How many of these did your team ID? How many can you ID now? Get out your Boyd to double-check the field marks and other info.

Lighted Path Walk 9-8-08

GNM 1053 Team Contest Week One, Fall 09 : The first two dozen plants and animals here have something in common. Today's first team challenge: a)What exactly do they share in common? Hints come at the end when you'll see some species that do not belong with the others, at least not yet. Second team challenge: How many can your team ID, working with each other today and maybe by email over the long weekend?

GNM 1053 Team Contest Week One, Fall 09

Kennedy Farm Bluebird Project 2008 : The Bluebird Nest Project at Kennedy Farm on campus was begun by Stockton alum, Mike O'Brien more than 20 years ago. As of 3/17/08 the bluebirds are singing and active in and around the next boxes, but no nesting yet. Jesse & I have been monitoring the nests at Kennedy Farm since 2005. Photos from our first year here.

Kennedy Farm Bluebird Project 2008

Can You ID These NJ Birds? : Photo Challenge for Jan 19. Use Sibley's field guide to name these twelve species. All but two could be seen on campus today (i.e. all but those two are year-round/permanent residents or are winter visitors and use campus habitats). How many species can you name?

Can You ID These NJ Birds?

Walk To Tall Tree Corner, 11-16-07 : Stockton's Pine Barrens Explorers walked to Tall Tree Corner and the Old Foundation on campus on F 11/16, our last group field trip of the semester. How many photos can you ID?

Walk To Tall Tree Corner, 11-16-07

Rt 539 Pitch Pine Forest Recovers from May 07 Fire : Some photos from 11-4-07 in the pine/oak forest east of the Pygmy Plains on Rt 539. This area burned in the 5-15-07 fire and has recovered, in the typical way of NJPB forests. McPhee notes, correctly, "Almost every woody plant in the Pine Barrens has the ability to sprout after fire." Pitch pine, Vaccinium (V. vacillans, lowbush blueberry, I believe), and scrub & scarlet oaks are resprouting here. 9/26/08: Also some other photos of fire ecology from the Pygmy Plains.

Rt 539 Pitch Pine Forest Recovers from May 07 Fire

Pygmy Plains ID Challenge 11-2-07 & 11-3-07 : Pine Barrens Explorers: Now you have been to the Pygmy Plains. How many of the following plants and animals can you ID? jc

Pygmy Plains ID Challenge 11-2-07 & 11-3-07

Nacote Creek & Port Republic Cemetery 10-5-07 : Why did Port Republic survive the 1800s while other NJPB towns disappeared? The clue is in one of these photos. And how many species can you ID here? Did you learn some new ones on our trip?

Nacote Creek & Port Republic Cemetery 10-5-07

Lake Pam Walk 9-21-07 : Eight of the species seen today and a couple of extras. How many can you ID?

Lake Pam Walk 9-21-07

Dark Path Walk 9-14-07 : A few photos of ten species seen on 9-14-07. Did your team ID these? Can you remember the names -- or figure them out now with a look at Boyd?

Dark Path Walk 9-14-07

Lighted Path Walk 9-10-07 : Pine Barrens Explorers: Some photos of plants and animals seen on our first class walk along Lake Fred's eastern side on 9-10-07. How many can you ID? To add to the puzzle, I've included one species not illustrated in Boyd (because it is not native to NJPB) and another that is illustrated in Boyd but would not be seen on the Lighted Path because the habitat is not right.

Lighted Path Walk 9-10-07

Stockton's Damsels & Dragons : How many species of odonata (damselflies and dragonflies) can be found on campus? Here's a selection.

Stockton's Damsels & Dragons

WAN Scavenger Hunt May 3 2007 : The 13th Annual Writing About Nature Scavenger Hunt was held on May 3. The winners were two softball players and a former Eagle Scout on crutches. All had fun (I think).

WAN Scavenger Hunt May 3 2007

Drawing About Nature 4-20-07 : Stockton's Writing About Nature class tries their hand at drawing about nature, on the Dark Path, 4-20-07.

Drawing About Nature 4-20-07

Frog Hunts 3-22 & 3-26-07 : Fred Akers has led two frogging expeditions (3/22 and 3/26/07) to four vernal ponds on campus in coordination with Jamie Cromartie's Ecological Principles class. Peepers calling in 100s, possibly 1000s, and chorus frogs calling in dozens on humid and warm (high 50s/low 60s?) on 3/22; peepers, chorus frogs, and southern leopard frogs calling on cooler (low 40s?) on 3/26 -- in somewhat lower numbers. Peepers were calling at all four ponds we visited. To learn their calls go to Frog Watch USA

Frog Hunts 3-22 & 3-26-07

Bike Trail Ride 11-1-06 : Stockton's bike trail explorers, November 1, 2006.

Bike Trail Ride 11-1-06

Pine Barrens wildflowers on campus :

Pine Barrens wildflowers on campus

Bird Club Walk & Orchids :

Bird Club Walk & Orchids

Rainy Day Challenge : Raining on Friday Sept 15, so I am adding some photos to this site in case we need some indoor ID challenges. How many can your team ID?

Rainy Day Challenge

Frosh Seminar First Day Photo Challenge : OK, GNM 1053 class of Fall 2006: What do the first 28 plants and animals in this collection of photos share in common? For a hint: the last five photos (after the second spider) do not belong in this group with all the others. (Tougher, extra challenge: how many can you ID?)

Frosh Seminar First Day Photo Challenge

Day of Service Aug 31 2006 : Stockton's Day of Service attracted several hundred volunteers, many of them freshmen. The most worthy crews of all, naturally, went on Bus 1 -- one team for gardening/weed patrol at the Forsythe NWR and the other to the osprey nest clean-up on Chesnut Neck on the Mullica River. The osprey team included Mary Kate McKenna, Danielle Paparteys, Natalie Conger, William Elmore, Sierra Leonard, Michael Little, Sarah Towel, Mike King, and Heather Thomas. A good time was had by all....at least I think so!

Day of Service Aug 31 2006

Mini World Series of Birding May 3 06 : End of semester bird chase by ornithology class, in teams of three. Total for all teams: 45 species identified in 75 minutes. I managed to catch up with 6 of the 9 teams for photos.

Mini World Series of Birding May 3 06

Walk To Old Foundation : A few pics from the Writing About Nature class walk to the Old Foundation on April 12, 2006

Walk To Old Foundation

Upper Lake Beaver Lodge : Beavers have moved back onto campus over the last 8-10 years and now have a large, expanding dam on Upper Lake. Photos here from New Year's Day, 2006.

Upper Lake Beaver Lodge

Leaf Chase Nov 4 05 : A chase of tree variety on campus by GIS 3656, 11-4-05. We found 22+ species as a group. I managed to catch up with only 5 of the 7 teams for photos. Click on any photo to enlarge it, or click on slide show to watch all scroll by.

Leaf Chase Nov 4 05

Big Spiral Down : Walking back to Stockton's cedar bog trail with my GIS class yesterday (10-28-05), I was distressed to discover that one of everyone's favorite trees on campus has been chopped down. This was a 70-ft Atlantic white cedar with a wonderful spiraling bark that marked the back entrance to the cedar bog walkway. My students have been admiring it for years...trying to reach around and measure its circumference with their arms, standing below and tracing the spiral upward. I learned later from Sandy Bierbrauer and Ray Mueller that the destruction occurred sometime in the last week of June...apparently by ax-wielders just for kicks. Sickening.

Big Spiral Down

Lake Pam Views : Lake Pam, a "burrow pit" on the eastern edge of Stockton's campus, was created when the sand was dug up in the 1950s for contruction of the Garden St Parkway, which stands a hundred yards away or so. No streams feed it, so the water level fluctuates with rainfall. The few fish that live there were probably tossed in by fishermen. Frogs, turtles, dragonflies, damselflies, floating bladderwort, and other organisms live there.

Lake Pam Views

Drawn-down Lake Fred Fall 2005 : Lake Fred was drawn down (Sept through Nov 05) to repair the "Lighted Path," which is an old cranberry bog dam and suffered damage in the torrential storm (13" rain) the night of 8-20-97. Shorebirds flocked to the new mudflats; 12 different species recorded (as of 11-26-05), several new for campus .

Drawn-down Lake Fred Fall 2005

Governor's School 2005 :

Governor's School 2005

Lake Fred's Leucistic Merganser Feb 2004 & 2005 : Bad photos (taken through my spotting scope) of an interesting bird. This female hooded merganser is leucistic, lacking the normal pigments that should make her brown. She has returned to Lake Fred in February, just as the ice opened, two years running now. In 2005, she seemed paired with the male in last two photos. Hooded mergansers are winter visitors in southern NJ, seen here from November through early March. They pair up on their wintering grounds, then migrate together to their nesting areas to the north and west. (2006 Update: she did not appear this year. Lake Fred was at very low levels because of repair work being done to Lighted Path Spillway. So we had few diving ducks of any species.)

Lake Fred's Leucistic Merganser Feb 2004 & 2005

Bald Eagle on Lake Fred Feb 2005 : Dave O'Donnell, a student in my Pine Barrens course, spotted this eagle at the end of our class walk around Lake Fred on 2-11-05. The ice was just opening. While we watched, the bird swooped down, sent the geese and ducks scattering, and caught a small fish (just visible in the two photos on the ice). It's probably a 4-year-old bird, as evident by the brown-tipped feathers remaining in tail and head. A second eagle in "white belly plumage [= 2 years old] swung down low for a look-see before continuing on. I took these fuzzy photos through the lens of my spotting scope. Quality is poor but the pix were useful for documentation purposes -- and helped spread the word about the richness of Stockton's habitats. (I've seen 8-10 eagles on campus over the years.)

Bald Eagle on Lake Fred Feb 2005

Kennedy Farm Bluebird Project 2005 : Stockton alum Mike O'Brien has been directing a bluebird project on campus and elsewhere through southern NJ for more than 20 years. He has had pretty steady success on campus at Kennedy Farm, although bluebirds there must compete with tree swallows, house wrens, and house sparrows for the nests. John Rokita (Director of Stockton's Animal Lab) and I have been monitoring the boxes once a week since April. The photos here are organized loosely by "nest box chronology." As of July 13, 2005, the bluebirds at two boxes (#24 and #29) have fledged young, and the four young in #23A are nearly fully feathered and are about to fledge. Tree swallows and house wrens have also fledged young in several boxes.

Kennedy Farm Bluebird Project 2005

Starflower at Cedick Run : Starflower, Trientalis borealis, is a pretty plant that reminds me of Cape St. Marys, Newfoundland, where it grows among the wind and wet rocks near the gannet and alcid colony. Ranges from Canada and the northern US down through the Appalachian mountains -- and can also be found in NJPB wetlands. I hadn't seen it on campus until our Bioblitz (5-13-05) and returned to find it blooming, 5-22-05. Cedick Run is the little stream that crosses Delaware Avenue, runs through Stockton's "west side" cedar bog, and flows into Lower Lake & Lake Fred.

Starflower at Cedick Run

Bioblitz May 2005 : Stockton's first Bioblitz was conducted from 3 pm May 12 to 3 pm May 13, 2005. The idea was to see how many organisms of all kinds we could find on campus in 24 hours. We found 83 species of birds and have not yet compiled totals for the other groups. We will do it again next year!

Bioblitz May 2005

Peter's & Keith's baby black rat snakes : Peter Harry found a young (DOR) snake in Milmay near his house, 9/15/08. Pattern suggested several other species, but after some Internet sleuthing and consultation with some local experts, we determined it was baby black rat snake, whose pattern is very different from the all-dark adult color illustrated in Boyd. One month later (10/12/08) Keith Semler captured a live individual with the same color pattern in his yard in Pomona, which he brought to class and we released on campus the next day. See a helpful matching photo on-line here

Peter's & Keith's baby black rat snakes

Students Outdoors On Campus :

Students Outdoors On Campus

Stockton Verts for ENVL Seminar 100608 : A small selection of vertebrates found on Stockton's campus.

Stockton Verts for ENVL Seminar 100608

Stockton Views & Plants for ENVL Seminar 100608 :

Stockton Views & Plants for ENVL Seminar 100608

Insects for ENVL Seminar 10-6-08 :

Insects for ENVL Seminar 10-6-08

The Bad & Worrisome for ENVL Seminar 10-06-08 :

The Bad & Worrisome for ENVL Seminar 10-06-08

WAN Walk Feb 13 2009 : Nature Writers, Photos from or about our walk on 2-13. Test your recall. Start by naming your classmates in the first five photos, then see if you can ID the species photos that follow. Good luck!

WAN Walk Feb 13 2009

Ornithology Class On The Dark Path 4-17-09 :

Ornithology Class On The Dark Path 4-17-09

Field Trips Fall 2009, SNW : Photos to help you review our field trips and also think about some concepts. They are generally presented in reverse chronological order from trip to trip -- the photos from the most recent trip usually appear first, and get bumped back down the list each week by the next set. At the moment (9/21) the first 10 photos make up 5 questions for the on-line quiz, due 1 a.m. 9-23-09.

Field Trips Fall 2009, SNW

SNW Interim Exam Photos & Some New Species Since : The Interim Exam photos are the first 11, then come photos field trips since the Interim. How many can you ID? Are you thumbing through your Boyd book during and after our field trips? That's the way to improve you abilities and NJPB knowledge.

SNW Interim Exam Photos & Some New Species Since

Pygmy Plains Trip Fall 2009 : Photos from our trips on Friday 10/30 and Saturday 10/31. Can you ID the species and answer the questions?

Pygmy Plains Trip Fall 2009

Photos from our trips on Friday 10/30 and Saturday 10/31. Can you ID ...

Updated: Nov 06, 2009 5:30am PST

Lake Fred Late Fall Walk 11-16-09 : A walk in pursuit of seeds along the Lighted Path and the Lake Fred shore to the Lakeside Center. How many species can you ID from the photos here?

Lake Fred Late Fall Walk 11-16-09

A walk in pursuit of seeds along the Lighted Path and the Lake Fred sh ...

Updated: Nov 18, 2009 1:49pm PST

T&E species on campus : A very brief look at some of Stockton's endangered and threatened species... and a few we had once or maybe still have.

T&E species on campus

A very brief look at some of Stockton's endangered and threatened spec ...

Updated: Nov 20, 2009 3:53am PST