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Conservation Commission

Conservation and More

              by Bruce B. Beckley

Issue #119, April, 2002
Water Over The Dam

Thanks to you

Thank you all you wonderful people who understand the value of open space and supported the Lindabury and Joppa Hill land purchases. And many thanks to the Amherst firemen who combined training with a good deed for the ACC by removing the Woolsey house in accordance with the donor’s bequest.

Pond Parish Waters

Trickle by trickle flow is returning in the brook that drains the Pond Parish area. It first becomes visible in the millrace of the old Converse sawmill dam beside Pond Parish Road. There the granite blocks and earthen fill that held back a 45-acre pond now lie under the roots of mature pines. The mill pond has filled in to become a wet maple and black spruce swamp with the trace of a water course showing here and there as the drainage from ACC land on Grater Road enters. Other wetland species such as pitcher plants also find a friendly habitat in the swamp.

The sounds of the old up-and-down saw at the mill have long since been quiet. The sounds of children no longer come from the schoolyard of No. 6 School just up the road that closed in 1920. These have been replaced by the sounds of children in the new development and the fast-moving traffic. At the old pond and in the 300 acres of woods around it one occasionally hears a logger’s chain saw or the intrusive sounds of four wheel RVs traveling through the private property. Otherwise the land waits quietly in the hands of investors for what the future inevitably holds.

Crossing under Pond Parish Road, the stream comes onto ACC land in the Pond Parish Town Forest. Here it is joined by more water from the former Parker farm on Baboosic Lake Road. The Parker land is now part of a larger tract the Commission had identified as an important element in the evolving north-south greenway and an addition to the Pond Parish holdings. Recently the out-of-state owner decided to sell the 184 acres to development interests rather than to the ACC or Amherst Land Trust at the same price. I guess you can’t win ‘em all.

Moving on. These waters continue on to feed an interesting complex of swamp, marsh and open beaver pond. At the upper end of this 100-acre wetland red maples and white pine have a tenuous hold on the saturated soils. Chest high cinnamon and interrupted ferns form a lower canopy over a ground cover of goldthread, wintergreen and sphagnum moss. Signs of a diverse mix of four-footed critters are noticeable at ground level while above, the calls of little peeps are punctuated by the whistle of a cruising raptor and the chopping of a pileated woodpecker up on the hill.

The stream moves on and down ever, ever so slightly now entering a marsh of grasses, alder and blueberry bushes that provide protected nesting sites for red-wing blackbirds and many other species. Beyond the marsh the stream enters several acres of beaver pond retained by a dam at the south end of the property off Spring Road.

Things do change. Just as the area is changing with each new home and condominium built in the neighboring woods, so when the beavers moved in there were changes made. The former meadow was wet but hosses could work some of it. Stone fences that now run into the water mark out the former farmlands. Once, only a decade or so ago, the skeletal white pines around the pond and marsh provided nesting for a great blue heron rookery. As the trunks finally toppled, the great birds moved away.

Unseen, and perhaps most importantly, the stream with its waters off the hills of Pond Parish flow above the major aquifer in the town and contribute to its recharge. This subsurface flow amounts to millions of gallons a day under the Souhegan valley.

The ACC-managed Pond Parish Town Forest may be reached from parking areas on Pond Parish Road and Spring Road. Incidentally, each of these entry points was created by Eagle Scout candidates. A loop trail takes the hiker first beside the stream as it moves from swamp to marsh and pond and then into a higher section of the upland woods. An observation platform at the transition point of marsh to pond is ideal for watching waterfowl. Thanks to ACC member Walter Ohlson and a dedicated volunteer cadre a new bridge now crosses part of the beaver pond to connect trails of the north and south sections of the reserve. The two miles of trail are varied and family friendly. Please pay us a visit.

The newly constructed bridge on the Pond Parish Trail was built by ACC volunteers this past winter using materials funded by a grant from the NH Trails Bureau. The 120-foot long bridge includes a mid-span bench giving a viewpoint of the pond and woods of Pond Parish.

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