Tundra Swans

in the New Jersey Pine Barrens by Bob Atkins, 2003

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Though many people think NJ is simply a huge industrial wasteland, populated by oil refineries, toxic waste dumps and characterized by the NJ Turnpike, Atlantic City and gambling, that's just not true. Well, at least not all of New Jersey is like that...

In the southern part of the state are the Pine Barrens. To quote from the NJ state website:

The Pinelands is our country's first National Reserve and a U.S. Biosphere Reserve of the Man and the Biosphere Program. This internationally important ecological region is 1.1 million acres in size and occupies 22% of New Jersey's land area. It is the largest body of open space on the Mid-Atlantic seaboard between Richmond and Boston and is underlain by aquifers containing 17 trillion gallons of some of the purest water in the land.

See, I told you NJ wasn't all bad.

Within the Pine Barrens are a large number of cultivated and abandoned cranberry farms, with large flooded fields ("bogs") and these make ideal wildlife habitat. Every year the bogs and ponds in the region near Whitesbog are home to a wintering population of Tundra swans. Several hundred swans may be seen at a time. The best time for viewing is said to be February, though the swans don't normally start migrating back north until mid-March.

Whitesbog is a NJ historic site and was a village built to house workers in the local cranberry bogs. Started in 1866, it fell into disuse in the 1940s and the bogs were abandoned until the area was bought by the State of New Jersey in 1967 along with other land the village and its surrounding 3,000-acre tract of land then became part of Lebanon State Forest where it remains today.

There are sand roads with run through the bogs (passable with a 2wd car under good conditions, 4wd and high ground clearance may be needed in snow and ice). There are perhaps 5-10 miles of roads and 4 or 5 large ponds within the area from which there is a chance of viewing the swans. However the swans don't just sit there waiting to be watched! Sometimes they are there, sometimes they aren't. No guarantees!

When I visited (late Feb 2003) the Whitesbog cranberry fields and ponds were "swan free". Not a one was spotted. However, about 5 miles west on Rt. 70 there's another area just south of the road - Reeve's bog - and it was there that we found about 200 tundra swans. Many of the bogs were frozen over since the weather had been very cold, but there was an area of open water where the swans were concentrated. The best way to find the areas where the swans might be is to talk with the staff at Whitesbog. They often know where recent sightings have been made.

It's possible you might be able to setup a photo blind and wait for the swans to approach (though you could be waiting a long time!). There isn't much other cover as the roads tend to be raised above the level of the bogs (which is just as well...) and there are few trees except on the outer margins of the farms. However photography isn't everything and it was fascinating to watch and listen to the swans (they get quite vocal at times) in the silence of the Pine Barrens.

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