Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge - Wildlife and Protected Species

Wildlife and Protected Species

A great diversity of birds have been recorded at the refuge, including nesting waterfowl: mallards, black ducks, wood ducks, and blue-winged teal. While-tailed deer, muskrats, red fox, raccoons, cottontail rabbits, weasels, beaver, squirrels, and a variety of small mammals are common. Many species of amphibians and reptiles are active during the warmer months.

The Concord unit is primarily two small lakes (referred to as "pools" or "impoundments") that are drained into the Concord River every summer. The resulting mud flats provide ideal feeding grounds for many species of shore birds and waterfowl that migrate in mid to late summer. In late July and in August, there will be wide range of birds at these feeding grounds, including various species of sandpipers, killdeer, lesser and greater yellowlegs, and great egrets. Large numbers of great blue herons, ducks and Canada geese are also attracted to these muddy and nutrient-rich feeding grounds.

Read more about this topic:  Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge

Famous quotes containing the words wildlife, protected and/or species:

    Russian forests crash down under the axe, billions of trees are dying, the habitations of animals and birds are layed waste, rivers grow shallow and dry up, marvelous landscapes are disappearing forever.... Man is endowed with creativity in order to multiply that which has been given him; he has not created, but destroyed. There are fewer and fewer forests, rivers are drying up, wildlife has become extinct, the climate is ruined, and the earth is becoming ever poorer and uglier.
    Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)

    When a girl’s under 21, she’s protected by law. When she’s over 65, she’s protected by nature. Anywhere in between—she’s fair game.
    Stanley Shapiro (1925–1990)

    Both classically- and romantically-minded spirits—inasmuch as these two species always exist—occupy themselves with a vision of the future: but the former do so out of a strength of their age, the latter out of its weakness.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)