Edge of Brooklyn

Marine Park Nature Center. Willet (Tringa semipalmata).Great Egret (Ardea alba).Yellow-crowned Night-Heron (Nyctanassa violacea), a bird that does not penetrate the city as much as the Black-crowned Night-Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax), but can be found along its edges. The western strip of Marine Park was not restored when the grasslands and salt-water marsh was done. It’s a graveyard of junked cars, paths and sands gouged by ATV- and dirtbike- holes, stalked by pre-teen paintball gun creeps (aiming at low-flying planes as their parents fish in some of the worst water around!), radio-controled airplane geeks, loners, and fire-starters. There was, in fact, a fire there the day we were there. We’re thinking it was the pot-heads.