From Jeff Ellerbusch:

This afternoon I decided to bike the D & R Canal towpath that runs between the Raritan River and the Canal, Franklin Twp. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now but haven’t gotten around to it. The main goal was to get Cliff Swallow for Somerset County. I accessed the trail from Landing Lane Bridge…from every map I’ve looked at of Somerset County the southern limit, as far as the River and Canal goes, starts shortly north of Landing Lane Bridge and continues north sharing the river with Middlesex County. At the 287 Bridge (map coordinates of everything below) there were two Cliff Swallow nests, one on the south side of the bridge- inactive as far as I saw, and an active nest on the north side of the bridge. There are Barn Swallows nesting under the bridge but the Cliff nests are on the side and very obvious. If very particular the nest looked to be slightly into the Middlesex portion of the river, if splitting the river in half for county sake. The Swallow pair was very actively catching bugs on both sides of the river to bring back to the nest and were easily Somerset County as well as Middlesex birds.

There are two much easier ways to view the nest besides taking the long bike ride- the first is to park at Bakelite Park, Middlesex County, and walk to the riverbank and view the 287 bridge from there. The other option would be to park at a lot off Easton Ave, Somerset County (map below), cross the canal and walk the 200 or so feet south to the bridge. The Easton Ave parkinglot option will allow you to also view the probably inactive nest, no activity in the 20 min. I was in the area, on the south side of the bridge.

(Google Maps)

Somerset County line…give or take a few yards- 40.508791,-74.467199
Active nest- 40.539907,-74.511724
Inactive nest- 40.539634,-74.511262
Bakelite Park- 40.541501,-74.510972
Easton Ave Parking- 40.540441,-74.514105

All spots are marked with green arrow, ignore the red A marker.

Jeff