Salt Marsh Nature Center (Brooklyn)

The main entrance building :

Butterfly bush:

The marked walkways and viewing areas:

The Gerritsen Creek entrance:
These paths are not landscaped, they lead to the tip of Gerritsen Beach and out to Jamaica Bay.

Views across the inlet

planting and watering new marsh grass

low tide and an egret feeding

These pilings are the only remnants of the old abandoned grist mill that burnt down in the 1930's. The original mill was built around 1645 by Hugh Gerritsen, it said to be the first "tidal" mill in the US.

From parks dept. web site

"The salt marsh is a birdwatcher's paradise. Ducks, geese, cormorants, sandpipers, herons, egrets, red-winged blackbirds, and marsh hawks are just a few of the birds that can be seen here...The role of our salt marsh is even more crucial because more than 75 percent of the original salt marsh in Jamaica Bay has been destroyed, much of it between 1950 and the mid-1970s. Most of that destruction was due to filling of marshes to create more land area for homes and industry. Marine Park's salt marsh, formerly a wasteland filled with trash and abandoned cars, has been restored to its natural condition -- proof that a rare and fragile ecosystem can safely exist even when it borders a heavily urban area like Brooklyn."

all color photos copyright nycedges 2010