Maritime Forests: Take a Walk Back in Time
Bayside Marsh at Bird Sanctuary
Seven Mile residents and visitors are fortunate to have remnants of North Atlantic Coastal Plain Maritime Forest to explore. These relatively rare forest types were once the widespread forests of barrier islands and mainland coasts. Coastal development, however, has reduced them dramatically so that these coastal forests make up less than 1 percent of the habitat in New Jersey. These forests are defined by the great forces that shape them, especially their proximity to the sea. Harsh winds, salt spray and sandy soil all combine to make these unique and special places worth exploring.
The Stone Harbor Bird Sanctuary preserves 21 acres of this forest, especially the part that extends from the bayside to the island interior. The Avalon Dune and Beach Trail (44th to 48th Street and Dune Drive) preserves the island interior from the forested dunes to the dune swale and sandy beach. A walk through them will transport you back in time to a place before the island was developed and provide an unforgettable experience.
If you were to have landed on our island 300 years ago, the island would have been a very different and wild place. High dunes formed by windblown sand and waves built the island. Many people who have lived their whole lives here tell stories of these high dunes now largely gone. Through time, younger dunes added successively to the island so that the dunes are organized with the highest, oldest dunes closest to the bay and younger and lower dunes progressively toward the beach. As you walk from the bayside to the island interior dunes and then beach, you are walking from the oldest dunes through younger and younger features until the beach, which is in constant flux. Seven Mile, and the other barrier islands on the East Coast, formed about 5,000 years ago as the last vestiges of Ice Age glaciers melted and sea-level rise rates slowed, allowing the shifting sandbars to stabilize, marshes to start to form, and island vegetation to take hold.
The bayside of the island supported marshes with gradual slopes up to the dune field that made up the core of the island. Tidal channels would have snaked their way to the foot of the bayside dunes, also called secondary dunes. The tidal inundation keeps trees and shrubs largely in check so that salt-marsh grasses dominate these areas. The occasional eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), bayberry (Morella pensylvanica) and groundsel (Baccharis halimifolia) occupy the higher ground. This inherited island structure is the reason some of the lowest-elevation areas on the island occur on the bayside. Tidal channels penetrating into the island can still be found in the Stone Harbor Bird Sanctuary and Armacost Park. These low, wet areas that are frequently flooded are likely one of the reasons they were never developed.
If you continue your hike from the bayside toward the ocean, you would enter the forest. Here the island’s oldest dunes are covered with a dense, well-developed forest that is adapted to the harsh, desert-like conditions. The forest is made up of species that can tolerate and thrive in these difficult conditions. One of the first things I notice about these forests is that they are dominated by berry-producing trees and vines, and wind has shaped the trees into fascinating twisted forms. American holly (Ilex opaca), black cherry (Prunus serotina) and sassafras (Sassafras albidum) dominate. Eastern red cedar, pitch pine (Pinus rigida) and hackberry (Celtis occidentalis) occur in fewer numbers but are also important in these forests. Vines are an important component here and they too are berry and fruit producers, especially grapes (Vitis spp.), poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) and Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia). The best place to see this forest is the Stone Harbor Bird Sanctuary on the Egret Espy Trail.
The primary dunes are lower dunes that are closer to the beach. As you continue your walk, done easily on the Avalon Beach and Dune Trail, the forest canopy opens up, trees are shorter, wind-pruned, and kept sculpted by salt spray. Oaks and some pines gradually give way to shrubs that give way to dune grasses and then the foredune and beach. The plants that are adapted to this environment provide important environmental services to stabilize the sand dunes and provide habitat and food resources for a diversity of resident and migrating wildlife. American beachgrass (Ammophila breviligulata) stabilizes the dunes and helps trap windblown sand to build the dunes. Seaside goldenrod (Solidago sempervirens) has a yellow flower that blooms in September and October, providing much-needed fuel to migrating Monarch butterflies. The foredunes are now engineered and built to a specified design to maximize their storm-protection capabilities, but a natural transition can still be seen in the wide dunes in the middle of Avalon.
Between the high dunes are the low swales that separate each dune ridge. These areas are wet and swampy. They trap rainwater that flows off the high dunes, creating a freshwater oasis on an island surrounded by salty waters. Some interdune wetlands occur in the dense forests and can be dominated by red maple (Acer rubrum), black gum (Nyssa sylvatica), persimmons (Diospyros virginiana), and willows. Others occur in the lower, shrub-dominated dunes closer to the beach. These are shrub- and grass-dominated wetlands where wax myrtle (Morella cerifera) and bayberry thrive. If you look carefully, on the western sides of the largest dunes edging toward the wet areas and even in the swamps, you can find a ghost cedar. These are long-dead northern white cedars (Thuja occidentalis) that hide behind the tall dunes, seeking protection from wind and preferring the moisture found here. They were prized for their decay-resistant wood and have largely been harvested out of these dunes and other maritime forests and swamps.
A great diversity of wildlife makes its homes in these forests, while others use them during migration. Eastern box turtles have a strong population in the Stone Harbor Bird Sanctuary. The freshwater swamps and wetlands support populations of Fowler’s Toads and Cope’s Gray Tree Frogs, their distinctive calls adding to the exotic feel of these native-forest remnants. The swamp forests in Avalon and Stone Harbor provide refuge to black-crowned and yellow-crowned night herons. The fruits and seeds so prevalent in these forests are enjoyed by migrating songbirds and those that are resident and nest here. The familiar red holly berries common in Christmas scenes are an important late-winter food resource for the millions of American robins that winter in Cape May every year.
These forests are fragile environments that need our stewardship to continue to thrive. Invasive, non-native plants that have been introduced by people, both accidentally and intentionally, have done great harm. English ivy, Japanese honeysuckle and sweet clematis are vines that have escaped into these forests. They have grown over and are killing many of the majestic trees with their light-blocking and smothering growth. The Borough of Stone Harbor, partnering with The Wetlands Institute, has been working for the past several years to manage and control invasive vines and restore and protect the maritime forest in the sanctuary. Armacost Park is in desperate need of this type of management if there is any hope of restoring this vestige of the island’s natural heritage now largely lost. Another invasive tree is of great concern. Japanese black pines were introduced in the 1960s in an effort to stabilize dunes following the 1962 storm. Native plants had done the job well for thousands of years but are being displaced in many areas. The introduced Japanese black pine has been so successful in the dune environment that it is crowding out the native trees and shrubs. It has even invaded the primary dunes and the land side of the foredunes. The pines release a chemical that excludes other plants from growing near them, further destabilizing the dunes. In addition to the harm they do to native vegetation, many pines are dying from a fungus disease carried into the trees by wood-boring beetles. The fungus has already wiped out Japanese black pines throughout New England and has been confirmed on our island.
Both Avalon and Stone Harbor have undertaken a long-term program to remove this invasive species and replace it with native shrubs, trees and, in some areas, grasses and forbs.
Find time to visit these forest and dune systems and take a walk back through time. Guided tours are offered at the Stone Harbor Bird Sanctuary on weekends this summer at 10am beginning on Second Avenue at the Egret Espy Trailhead (114th Street). Guided walks of the Avalon Beach and Dune Trail are Wednesdays at 9:30am at 48th Street and Dune Drive. Self-guided walks are available at both sites. I guarantee you won’t believe you are still on our island.
Summer Activities
FREE WITH ADMISSION THROUGH LABOR DAY:
Hooked on Fishing and Crabbing at the Dock – Saturday and Sunday.
Salt Marsh Safari – Daily.
Creature Feature – Monday through Friday.
Catch o’ the Day – Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
Aquarium Feeding – Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday.
Totally Turtle Tuesdays, Helping Hands Wednesdays and Horseshoe Crabmania Thursdays – Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings.
ADDITIONAL FEES APPLY:
Back-Bay Birding and Wildlife Tours – Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Dune and Beach Exploration – Monday in Stone Harbor, Wednesday in Avalon.
Back-Bay Kayaking and Paddle Boarding – Monday through Friday.
Evening Back-Bay Kayaking – Wednesday and Thursday.
For details or to make a reservation, visit wetlandsinstitute.org or call 609.368.1211.
