Some Of My Best Friends Are Salt Marshes

  Riding the train west to New Haven or New York, you pass salt marshes with old and evocative names like The Saw Pit, Great Harbor, and Old Quarry. Watch for marsh birds - yellowlegs, sandpipers, Snowy Egrets. In the fall, you may find Northern Pintails, teal, and Black Ducks, like this one. We didn't take good care of many of these places. We diked and drained them and filled them with debris. But some we brought back to life - like Cove Island Park, where in recent years observers have recorded close to 300 species of birds.