Birding in Jamaica Bay

Not only does Jamaica Bay offer camping, as I was surprised to learn last summer, it is also home to one of the country's largest bird sanctuaries. We headed out there on Mother's Day. The air smelled clean and salty, as if we'd left the city behind. From the visitor center, it's an easy mile and a half walk circling a pond, with the bay water on one side and the marsh and shrubby vegetation on the other. Ducks and geese abound, but so do plenty of other birds. Bring binoculars to spot them all, as well as bird watching lovers. I'm no good at finding and identifying birds, so I'm always impressed by people who can. They pointed out ospreys in their constructed wooden nests, egrets, a green heron, yellow warblers and others I can't remember. We stopped so often to look at birds that we had to turn around after only making it a quarter way around in order to make a dinner reservation on time. We drove there, but it would also be a nice day trip by bike.