If you live on the West Coast and happen to spot a Pacific Black Brant headed north or south, you could bet your wallet that it’s either headed to or been to Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.

I spent last weekend birding the coastline of New Jersey. My partner in crime was Seth Cutright, a hawk counter at Sandy Hook Bird Observatory, just across the pond from New York City. After a hectic morning in which the air was alive with American kestrels and Northern harriers, the slowness of the afternoon prompted Seth’s generous supervisor to give him the rest of the day off.

Seth and I did not waste a minute — off to Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge (a.k.a. Brigantine, or simply Brig, to locals) we went.

In January, The Wilderness Society celebrated the passage of a monumental package of wilderness and public lands bills by the Senate.

Now, the fate of the long-awaited Omnibus Public Land Management Act is teetering on the edge as it heads toward a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.

All indications say the vote will be extremely close.

As the House prepares to consider the measure this spring, The Wilderness Society is working feverishly to ensure this needed legislation makes it through the final steps.