TRANSCRIPT:
Only a subway ride away from Manhattan, Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge is located on a sandy atoll in the middle of Jamaica Bay, Queens. It is a small sanctuary for both aquatic birds and turtles.
As you cross over a bridge on the way to the sanctuary, you get the feeling that the subway has magically transformed itself into a boat. The water sits only a few feet below the bottom of the train.
Although technically still in New York City limits, the train drops you in a neighborhood that evokes the feeling of a small beach town. The streets are packed tightly with small, simply-constructed houses.
The first sign that you are near a refuge are the broken clam shells that litter the nearby parking lots. Seagulls drop the shells from on-high, seeking to extract the sweet clam meat from inside.
A newly renovated nature center, operated by the National Park Service greets you at the entrance to a two-mile long trail.
The trail circles around a giant brackish pond that is the home to hundreds of seabirds including swans, Canadian geese, snow geese, seagulls, egrets and various kinds of ducks.
Songbirds find refuge here as well. Take a moment to listen.
Nesting Canadian geese step out to greet you but hiss a warning that you’d better stand back–this is their turf.
Divided from the trail by tall thickets of vines and bushes, a sandy shell-strewn beach beckons for hot and weary feet.
However, this beach is off limits. It’s used as a breeding ground for the endangered diamond-back terrapin turtle.
In this dry environment, succulent plants and even small cactuses emerge from the sandy soil.
Vegetation on other parts of this little atoll can be dense, as the plants fight for the precious rays of the sun.
The vines of the invasive Oriental Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) don’t fight fair. They strangle the other plants in their skyward quest.
In the middle of a flat, marshy, expanse full of debris, park service employs have constructed a nesting platform for ospreys–also known as seahawks.
If you look closely, you can just barely make out something stirring in the nest.
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