Believe it or not, each of these pix were in fact taken in the Garden State!

Helyar Woods, North Brunswick. My first Patch List and where I cut my teeth on warbler identification.

This was a centuries old, massive Black Oak that had recently fallen into the stream when I identified my first Black-throated Blue Warbler on it. Not much left of the wood, but the park hold plenty of birding memories for me.

Round Valley Reservoir.

Spruce Run Reservoir.

Oberly Road in the Alpha Grasslands. No, really, this is New Jersey!

The Alpha Grasslands have been preserved, in large part due to the efforts of birders who wanted to protect one of the state's few remaing large tracts of grassland bird habitat.

Horned Larks are resident here, and many birders search it in winter for Snow Buntings and Lapland Longspurs. It's one of the best places in the state to see the latter.

That's not an island!

Lots o' Snow Geese.

How many did you count?

With more arriving.

The Merrill Creek Snow Goose flock disperses to feed on waste grain in nearby fields.

The EASY way to study gulls at the Jersey Shore.

"Big Takanassee, the Mute Swan from Hell." The beast of Lake Takanassee escorted me and Bruce around the pond - even taking a run at me once. If these things weren't so darn destructive, I would be able to enjoy their beauty.

OK, in the name of balanced reporting . . . .here are the woods in which I first began playing in the mud, collecting salamanders, and eventually looking at birds. I remember there used to be Bobwhite in here - now the species is nearly extirpated from the state.