Spring Programs and Events

Fringed polygala (Polygala paucifolia)

Programs will be added and amended as information becomes available.

April 12 - September 15
Concord Museum:  Early Spring:  Henry Thoreau and Climate Change
Many of Cherrie's photos included in the exhibition
Concord Museum - Exhibition Info and Resources

April 13 - May 5
Musketaquid Earth Month Exhibit
Emerson Umbrella main gallery
40 Stow St., Concord

Sunday, April 14, 1:30-4:30 pm
Estabrook Woods Walk -- Early Spring Highlights
Led by Cherrie, register through New England Wild Flower Society

Sunday, April 21, 3-5 pm
Monthly Great Meadows Walk, GMNWR Concord
Monsen Road, off Rte. 62/Concord, driveway on left where road curves right
Meet Cherrie in the parking lot.  $5 donation requested

Sunday, April 21, 5-8 pm
Musketaquid Earth Month Exhibit -- Artists' Reception
Featuring the work of local artists of all ages
Emerson Umbrella Gallery, 2nd floor
40 Stow Street, Concord
Edges - Musketaquid Earth Month Exhibit

Saturday, April 27, 6:30 am
Concord Town Birdwalk and Potluck Breakfast
Meet at Peggy Brace's, 49 Liberty St. at 6:30 am for walk, and reconvene 9-10 am for breakfast.  Opportunity to join in Musketaquid river ceremony and parade afterwards, just around the corner.
Leaders:  Peter Alden, Simon Perkins, Dick Walton, Michael Reed, and Cherrie Corey

Saturday, April 27, 10 am - 2 pm
Musketaquid Earth Day Celebration
10 am -- River Ceremony, Lowell Rd. boat landing
11 am -- Join the parade from Lowell Rd. bridge to Emerson Umbrella
11:30 -- Festival, Emerson Umbrella front lawn

Saturday, May 4, 2-4 pm
Chronicling Early Spring at Great Meadows NWR
Family nature walk with Cherrie
Concord Museum Nature Rambles - Registration

Saturday, May 11, 6:30-10 am
Concord Town Birdwalk #2 - Returning Songbirds
Meet at municipal parking lot on Keyes Road, for exploration of local woodlands including Estabrook Woods
Leaders:  Scott Edwards, Curator of Birds at Harvard U. Museum of Comparative Zoology and Michael Reed, Professor of Avian Ecology and Conservation Biology, Tufts U.
Originally scheduled for May 12, please not the change.

Saturday, May 11, 2:30-5 pm
Haiku Walk with Brad Bennett and Cherrie Corey
Great Meadows NWR and Thoreau Farm
Limited to 10.  To register, email cherrie.corey@verizon.net

Sunday, May 12, 3-5 pm
Monthly Great Meadows Walk, GMNWR
Off Monson Rd., Concord
Meet Cherrie in the parking lot.  $5 donation requested
CANCELLED DUE TO LARYNGITIS!

Sunday, June 2, 1:30-3:30 pm
Gowing's Swamp/Thoreau's Bog Walk
Learn about the bog's unique cultural, scientific, and natural history
Register through Sudbury Valley Trustees/Gowing's Swamp Walk

Saturday, June 15, 4-6 pm
Monthly Great Meadows Walk, GMNWR
Off Monson Rd., Concord
Meet Cherrie in the parking lot.  $5 donation requested
 
June 21-23
RiverFest Weekend
Links and info to follow

Sunday, June 23, 7:30-9 pm
Super Moonrise Walk, Great Meadows NWR
Off Monson Rd., Concord
Meet Cherrie in the parking lot.  $5 donation requested

Historic Moore's Swamp in the Crosshairs

Moore's Swamp, highlighted by a winter's sunset

Concord is in the throes of deciding the fate of Moore's Swamp, a large and historic wetland that wraps itself around Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and is partially bisected by Bedford St./Rte. 62, which was constructed in the mid-1800's during Thoreau's lifetime.

On Wed., June 5, beginning at 7 pm at 141 Keyes Road, 1st Fl. Conference Room, Moore's Swamp will once again be the focal point of a Natural Resources Commission public hearing to rule on a Notice of Intent (DEP File #137-1178) filed by Concord's Dept. of Public Works.  The DPW has proposed to clear and re-engineer clogged drainage culverts and effectively drain the swamp in an attempt to address some current and potential flooding concerns.  Many are concerned that such action could fundamentally alter this important habitat for the town's rare Blanding's turtles, a growing great blue heron colony, an active beaver population, and a great diversity of wildlife and woody and herbaceous plants who make their home in transitioning red maple swamps.

Rootball tip-ups of blown over red maples in Moore's Swamp.  Tip-ups provide ideal micro-habitats for young Blanding's turtles under water and pioneering plant seedlings above the surface.

In his Journal, Thoreau left us a detailed description of Moore's Swamp more than 150 years ago, making it clear that it was, even then, a well established wetland with significant water depths, even in it's driest seasons when a thick crust of vegetation and debris covered its surface.  His observations are instructive and give us insight about the natural processes that are the focus of our town's concerns today, though now blamed on the beaver:

July 6, 1853.  I can sound the swamps and meadows on the line of the new road to Bedford with a pole, as if they were water.  It may be hard to break through the curst, but then it costs a very slight effort to force it down, sometimes nine or ten feet, where the surface is dry...The larch grows in both Moore's and Pedrick's swamp.  Do not the trees that grow there indicate the depth of the swamp?...I drink at the black and sluggish run which rises in the Pedrick's Swamp and at the clearer and cooler one at Moore's Swamp, and, as I lie on my stomach, I am surprised at the quantity of decayed wood continually borne past.  It is this process which, carried on for ages, formed this accumulation of soil.  The outlets of the valley being obstructed, the decayed wood is no longer carried off but deposited near where it grew.

View of Moore's Swamp from Sleepy Hollow cemetery, at its low-lying northern extension. This portion of the cemetery was built on a section of the swamp that was filled in 1959.

Thoreau's account continues, documenting with some amusement, the engineering challenges encountered when the town tried to run the new Bedford road through the swamp:

...Part of the Bedford road in Moore's Swamp had settled a few days ago, so much more that the water was six inches deep over it, when they proceeded to cart on more sand...half a dozen rods in length suddenly sank before their eyes, and only water and sand was seen where the road had been...As I calculate, at least ten feet in thickness of sand have been placed on this swamp, and the firm mud could not have been less than a dozen more...The weight of sand suddenly jerked this tremendous weight of mud right back onto the road, bottom up...a few rods more, with the culvert went down so that it was a full four feet under water, making it some seven or eight rods in all. Here was probably once a pond, which as filled up and grown over, but still a relic of it survives deep under the mud in the deepest part....There are thus the relics of ponds concealed deep under the surface, where they are little suspected, perchance, as under cleared and cultivated swamps or under roads and culverts.  

Join me now for a brief tour through Moore's Swamp beginning in the winter of 2013.  I will continue to add new photos as warm weather and new life return to the wetland.

Overlook of swamp from Author's Ridge, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

Beaver sign on the shoreline

Beavers create new habitat that promotes healthy species diversity both in and around wetlands

Varied understory habitat within the swamp

Skunk cabbage flower bud melting through the snow

Coyote and fisher cross paths

Scratching post

Moore's Swamp is becoming an active great blue heron colony

Sixteen nests have been counted

Many tip-ups (fallen trees) provide ideal habitat pockets for young Blanding's turtles and pioneering plants

Willow-herb found growing on many tip-up root balls

Willow-herb seedlings growing in February

Fall down areas let in more sunlight and create opportunities for a greater diversity of swamp life

Windfallen still lifes, new habitats for insects and micro-organisms

Pileated woodpecker activity creates new homes for nesting swallows, chickadees, red-breasted nuthatches, screech owls, and other cavity-nesting birds

Several lichen species on fallen limbs help to fix and transfer nitrogen to the swamp

Usnea lichen and wild grapes festoon decaying branches

Fallen, old-growth tree now home to wildlife and tree fungus

Remnants of linden flowers

Blizzard moving in, 2/8/13

Of the 16 nests counted in the swamp last winter, twelve are occupied by sitting birds, as of 4/29/13.  I took these photos of the first returning pair who I observed in the courtship rituals of display, caressing, and nest repair on March 21st.  Moore's Swamp is home to many of the feeding herons we encounter at nearby Great Meadows NWR and is becoming one of Concord's most active heron colony's.  Please be aware, these photos were taken with a 500mm lens.  The nests are quite high and difficult to observe without a spotting scope and will soon be obscured by surrounding foliage.

Spring dawns - great blue herons caressing on the equinox

Presenting a twig for the nest

Letting him have the pleasure of weaving it in

Resident beaver swimming below, responsible for much of the diverse life flourishing around and above him.

On March 24,  I returned to take check the colony and, while observing the nests, the initial pair  began to mate.

 

The male mounted the female and held her (gently, I hope) in place with the tips of his beak

After stepping off, he spreads one wing over her

Then for nearly five minutes they moved together with perfect synchronicity, beginning with a beak caress.

...followed by preening

...and finally a quiet paired stance

New life is surging forth in Moore's Swamp this week, it's fate held in the balance, pending the outcome of Natural Resource Commission's determination regarding the town's DPW proposal.  You are encouraged to attend the public hearing and express your support for the preservation of Moore's Swamp on Wed., June 5, 7 pm at 141 Keyes Road, 1st Fl. Conference Room and/or by sending a e-letter to the NRC Commissioners and Delia Kaye, NR director, at dkaye@concordma.gov.

Make informed and careful choices...love and protect Moore's Swamp

Moments of Grace

False Hellebore (Veratrum viride)

Moments of grace co-exist with each moment of sorrow.  Drawing our attention to grace, will help to carry us through.

Gentle Remembrances

Pilgrims left thoughtful spring gifts for Henry today, at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery...a beautiful little dory, heartfelt sentiments from a young admirer, and Concord Museum stickers where the new show is all about him!  And the beautiful epitaph adorns the stone of his botanizing buddy, Edward Hoar, just below Author's Ridge.*

*Thanks to Ray Angelo for steering me to E. Hoar's headstone and illuminating his and Thoreau's relationship.  For more about Edward Hoar, see "Edward S. Hoar Revealed," Ray Angelo.

Great Meadows March Walk

Saturday, March 16, 3-5 p.m.

March is a month of seasonal transition and the ever-presence of water and wind. 
"Ice out" time brings the prospect of spring flooding and emerging wetland plants and wildlife.  Muskrat and beaver boldly appear, redwings return, birdsong fills the marshes, eagles join the spring feasting, and fat red maple buds burst into bloom in the floodplain forest.  Join me to explore spring's early awakening throughout the refuge.  Dress in warm layers and wear waterproof footgear.

No preregistration required.  A $5/person donation will be gratefully accepted.

Led by Cherrie Corey, local naturalist and photographer

Co-sponsored by Friends of the Assabet River NWR and Musketaquid Arts and Environment Program

Meet at Great Meadows NWR in Concord, MA
(Monsen Rd., off Rte. 62, driveway on left where road curves right)

For questions, email cherrie.corey@verizon.net or call 978-760-1933

Harbingers of Spring

First skunk cabbages reported blooming on March 1

The warm waters and protected hollow of Brister's Spring, in Concord's Town Forest, give way each year to some of the first blooming skunk cabbage in Concord.  An abundance of flowers emerge from the gently flowing waters and soft, deep mud.  Walden Woods' Matt Burne reported these primal blossoms on March 1st and I followed with this portrait session on March 3rd, risking a fall into a very wet and gooey spring bed.  Ray Angelo, an authority on Concord's floral history, reports that Thoreau's average date of bloom for skunk cabbage was March 31, based on six annual observations noted in his journals 150+ years ago.

Pollen showing inside this open blossom

Skunk cabbage are a colorful and shapely breed

These beauties were in full glory throughout a significant weekend snowstorm, affirming that spring's progress was not deterred by March's occasional wintery interludes.

Brister's Spring trail

Fairyland Pond trail

Birch branches against pond ice

Winter Haiku Walk

Co-leader Brad Bennett and I ventured out across Great Meadows on Sunday, with eight other hearty souls, our Haiku minds open to the wild and turbulent wind, whirling snow, and winter solitude.  Here are a few shared Haiku inspirations from our group coupled with some of my photographs.

snow smoke swirls

bent cattail blades

whisper

Iris Fennell

finding calm

in the rage of winter wind

a complete surprise

Cassandra Oxley

dancing snow

specters in the haloed sun

spring so distant 
Cassandra Oxley

howling wind

and whirling snow

moving ghostly eddies

Susan Primm Thel

ice flows black water –

colors of poets watching

geese swimming upstream

Cherrie Corey

a cold silence
geese swimming upriver
past floating ice 

Brad Bennett

swamp dogwood 

in snow

red in endless white

Beth Brownlow

coffee ready waiting

warmth for haiku trekkers

snow spirals whirling

Anne Whitaker

With our gathered inspirations, we adjourned to Thoreau Farm to share our Haiku and warm refreshments.  On my short drive home, at dusk, I noticed a firey glow building on the horizon and dashed back to Great Meadows for an unexpected sunset at the end of this icy, gray day.  Snow swirling pink now, a "double" sun, and a welcome encounter with dusk-walking friends, Iris and Mary.

winter branches

end of day

sky fire

Iris Fennell