MY JOURNEY AS a birdwatcher (the term “birder” had not been coined yet) began in the woods and overgrown fields behind my parents’ ranch house in Whippany, New Jersey. To save you a Google search, Whippany is located about 25 miles west of Manhattan. It sits atop the eutrophic remains of glacial Lake Passaic and precisely where, I estimate, the retreating Laurentide ice sheet dumped its biggest load of rocks. Ask any of the kids who had to clear them by hand so their dads could have the flat, green lawns suburban homeowners dream of. Adjacent to my parents’ rockpile was several hundred acres of publicly owned hardwood forest in early stages of succession, with red maple, pin oak, and white oak dominating.
The “Big Woods”
