Author: Marty Luster

 Nick, fishing at the State Fish Pier, carefully releases an unintended catch.

On July 30, Dave Rimmer, Director of Land Stewardship at  Essex County Greenbelt, researcher Bob Bierregaard, and a small crew of Greenbelt personnel and other researchers set out to trap and tag, with a Telemetry strap,  one of the family of Osprey which nest in the summer before their migration to South America. The nest is on the high stand in the middle of the marsh west of the road to Coffin’s Beach.

After 4 1/2 hours, one of the young birds and one adult male were trapped. A  one ounce satellite transmitter was placed on the juvenile’s back and they were released.

Video by Marty Luster

Still photo by Bob Wayne.

When I was about this young boy’s age I regularly went fishing with my father in the Rondout Creek in Ulster County N.Y. where he was raised.  During those outings we spoke little, but communicated a great deal. He taught me patience and the practice of meditation as it applied to repeated casts into the mesmerizing swirls, pools and eddies of the creek. He taught me that subtlety and finesse caught more fish than brute force and that the joy was in the journey, not the destination.

I never became a great fisherman, but the memories I caught on those excursions – hiking through the woods to the creek, baiting up, watching how Dad expertly cast his line and landed his fish, and walking home quietly through the fields as the setting summer sun cast a magical glow  – these prizes I caught, and they are displayed forever on the mantel of my heart.