Ecology Field Trip Part 1: Rutgers Marine Field Station, dune, and saltmarsh

Last weekend we took a field trip with the ecology class to the Rutgers Marine Station in Tuckerton, NJ. This was a kind of homecoming for me. I was there September 20, 1990 as an undergraduate at Rutgers. The class was Marine Animal Ecology and after a night of helping a graduate student (now a section chief at NOAA), I was offered a beer and the student suggested I consider graduate school. So I turn nearly 30 years later with my own class hoping to inspire the next ecologist. 

We found lots of interesting plants, birds, invertebrates, and fish. 

Late afternoon in a Spartina marsh

Spartina and Salicornia virginica 

Late afternoon at the station

Ensis directus

Geukensia demissa

Atlantic surf clam, Spisula solidissima

Immature Black-crowned Night Heron

Great Blue Heron (above and below as well)

Greater Yellowlegs 

Great Egret

Peregrine Falcon

Seining with a 100' seine in the Mullica River-Great Bay Estuary

The station

Tidal creek bounded by Spartina alterniflora

Solidago sempervirens (Seaside Goldenrod), phragmites,
and Ammophila breviligulata (beach grass)

Close up of dune

Spartina patens 

Sandy beach