BrandonBirds : New Overpeck County Park and Overpeck Preserve

Just southeast of Teaneck Creek Conservancy lies Overpeck County Park. Once a continuation of the landfill that was also present at TCC, this park blends old and new in offering a nature preserve and also a brand new state-of-the-art sporting complex. Overpeck Creek, which runs through the park, has been dammed up to create a larger reservoir. Both birds and humans take full advantage of this body of water. Equally amazing, it is just five miles from NYC!

Human usages of the lake include: rowing (Teaneck and Bogota High School teams practice here), canoeing and kayaking. The New Overpeck County Park offers soccer, baseball and softball fields as well as a really nice new amphitheater for concerts. Playgrounds, picnic areas and paved trails also traverse the park. These trails are buttressed to the West by a thin strip of mixed prairie/woodland habitat and to the East by more prairie habitat and the lake.

Many birds take full advantage of the both the preserve and other surrounding areas of the lake. A pair of Bald Eagles have recently started a nest in the past year or two and successfully fledged this year. Herring and Ring-billed gulls, Canada Goose, American Coot and Double-crested Cormorants can also be seen on the lake with some regularity.

Monk Parakeets can sometimes be heard and observed flying in loud flocks in the northeast corner of the park by the walking/running area. There are nests near some of the power lines by the intersection of Fort Lee Road and Willow Tree Road. Some of the nests have gotten so big that utility workers have actually had to remove them because they were posing a fire hazard.

The Overpeck Preserve itself offers great birding throughout the year. Spring, summer and fall offer raptors, passerines and wading birds. Winter is a time of raptors and sparrows. LeConte's Sparrow has been observed at least once within the preserve within the last five seasons.

As of recent, this park has really been a raptor magnet! At the southwest corner of the park are some larger corporate building where Peregrine Falcons can be observed flying and/or perched on roofs. I have recently noticed a pair of American Kestrals that have taken up territory near the trails in the new part of the park at the southwest entrance (and heading north on the road towards the sports complex). Today (11-7-12) I saw a Bald Eagle flying towards the Hackensack River in Teaneck, a Red-tailed Hawk in the preserve, a Cooper's Hawk passing through in the southwest corner of the park, a Peregrine Falcon flying near the South end of the park near the aforementioned buildings and that same pair of American Kestrals guarding their aforementioned territory (from the Cooper's Hawk). Red-shouldered Hawks are also not uncommon in the preserve depending on the time of the year.