Rockaway Road, Oldwick, NJ
Phone: (908) 439-0022
www.tewksburytwp.net
Tewksbury Township
When leaving the parking area proceed across railroad tracks and stay Right to continue on Old Mountain Road. After 0.8 miles turn Left at the stop sign onto Mountain Road and continue 1.0 miles carefully turning Right at the stop sign onto U.S. Route 22 East. After 1.5 miles, turn Left at the traffic light onto CR 523/Oldwick Road and proceed 2.4 miles turning Left onto Rockaway Road. Continue a short distance and turn Right into the parking area. Map
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| Buckeye | Kristin Mylecraine |
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| | Home to the Roving Nature Center, the Whittemore Wildlife Sanctuary offers events, nature day camps and adult education opportunities to the local area and to visiting naturalists, birders and hikers. Covering 180-acres, the sanctuary includes a large variety of habitats, including deciduous wetland and upland forests, stands of conifers with red cedar, Virginia pine and white pine, wetlands, fields, successional areas, stream and riverine ecology and vernal pools. Marked hiking trails traverse most of these habitats.
a visit during March, April and early May to Whittemore’s vernal pools—small, temporary, fishless ponds used by some amphibian species for breeding. With careful observation it might be possible to see the adults, eggs and tadpoles of spring peeper, a small treefrog, and wood frog, along with spotted and Jefferson’s salamanders.
A walk here in winter will usually produce sightings of white-tailed deer and sometimes red fox. Birds found will include American Robin, the occasional Eastern Bluebird, Hermit Thrush, American Goldfinch, Golden-crowned and Ruby-Crowned Kinglets and Song, Field, Tree and White-throated Sparrows. Owls can occasionally be found roosting in cedars and pines during the winter months; look for whitewash and pellets—the regurgitated bones and fur of the mice and voles eaten by owls.
Male American Woodcock begin entrancing mating displays in fields and open areas on mild, windless evenings beginning in early March. Breeding frogs and salamanders migrate to the preserve’s vernal pools when the ice is gone—usually beginning in mid-March—often heralded by the loud chorus of wood frogs. Migrant and breeding passerines begin to arrive in mid-April. Virginia bluebells, formerly fairly common before the explosion of the deer population, can still be found very sparingly in alluvium along Rockaway Creek and its small tributaries in late April.
American Goldfinch turn bright yellow for the summer breeding season, and nesting Gray Catbird, Song Sparrow and Red-eyed Vireo are common. Milkweed, goldenrod and many other flowers bloom in the open fields, providing nectar for a good variety of butterflies.
Southbound warblers, vireos and flycatchers can be found in September, and migrant and wintering sparrows and kinglets in October and November. Migrant hawks from the Watchung Ridge to the east often fly over in September and October, and Red-tailed Hawk and Cooper’s Hawk are usually found here at this season.
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