Rambling New England Nature

Great Turkey Pond, Concord, NH
October 12, 2015

From the Audubon Center parking lot off Silk Farm Road

Great Turkey Pond Trail

Walking from the front parking area at the Susan N. McLane Audubon Center off Silk Farm Road in Concord, NH, to the far end of the parking lot, I notice the trailhead for Great Turkey Pond Trail. The name of this pond, by the way, came from its shape; it’s shaped like a turkey.

   Just as I’m about to enter the woods, near an information kiosk, I notice a woman with binoculars off to my right. I don’t want to disturb her, but I look toward the edge of the woods to see what she’s looking for. Immediately, I see a few small birds flitting about the low shrubs and low tree branches. Their actions immediately suggest that they’re warblers. One of them lands on a short post at the edge of the pavement. It’s a female palm warbler. It flies to the brush, probably after an insect, and then back again.

   The next bird I see is on a low branch. It’s a yellow-rumpled warbler in its fall garb. I spend some time watching these birds moving quickly from branch to branch; one would suddenly appear from the ground, and then as quickly alight under the cover of a thicket. “Single birds were more often met with than any other species,” wrote J. Claire Wood of black-throated blue warblers in “Autumn Warbler Hunting, which appeared in January 1906 edition of The Auk, “and no other exhibited an equal amount of curiosity. One actually came down from the top of a tall elm to inspect me. This species was one of the few exceptions where only adult males were noted on the day of its first appearance. The October 15 birds were of both sexes and all ages, but the two later records were adult females.”

   On his “hunt,” which, unfortunately, was with a gun, Wood also counted roughly two hundred of what he called myrtle warblers (we know them as yellow-rumped warblers). These numbers have been reduced today due to a number of factors. I can’t help thinking that if in 1906 Wood shot only one myrtle warbler of the two hundred he saw, and if we assume that these warblers produce one young bird per year and live only three years, due to the effect of compounding (the young bird in 1907 would presumably produce its own young), by 1926, that single bird and its kin, if it had survived, would have produced a million birds! So, how many birds did Wood actually kill? One or one million? In light of the effect of compounding, perhaps we need to rethink our own effect on the natural world.

   I walk past the kiosk and enter a mixed forest with beech, black birch, oak and sugar maple. The leaves of black birch and sugar maple have turned yellow and the beech leaves are turning a pretty copper color. High-bush blueberry, privot with red berries and winterberry grow at the shrub layer, while the trail side leaf-litter is covered by dewberry, goldenrod, soft-rush, sheep laurel, whorled loosestrife, Clintonia, sarsaparilla, young maples and birches, bracken fern, some to four feet tall, cinnamon fern, haircap moss, partridgeberry and bunchberry.

   Soon, I approach Old Orchard Trail, which heads straight; but, I follow the yellow-slashed West End Farm Trail to the left. But, before I travel on, I look to the right, over a stone wall, and out to a pretty view of the open field just beyond these woods. I would imagine this is an old orchard. These open-field glimpses from within a forest are always a treat to see; it’s as if I’m looking back in time, and I expect to see a farmer tending to his oxen-pulled plow or picking fruit for the markets in Lowell or Boston.

   The trail is covered with pine needles and red and yellow red maple leaves. It’s a pretty fall woods. Chickadees and titmice fly by to inspect the trees and rolled leaves for insects. I see a bird that doesn’t resemble either; upon closer inspection, I see that it’s another yellow-rumped warbler. These birds break the autumn silence and animate the branches with their hushed sounds and frantic movements. I pass maple-leaved viburnum, its leaves turning maroon, and cucumber root, with yellow leaves, the top leaves stained with red. At a time when the world was more naïve, it was believed that these red stains were the work of spirits, who possessed the plant. Green club moss spikes poke through the dead leaves on the ground, and whorled-leaved aster, well beyond its prime, grows nearby.

   Maple-leaved viburnum is a common shrub, but most likely goes unnoticed due to the resemblance of its leaves to those of our red maple. This time of the year, however, it makes sense to get to know it to fully appreciate the color of its leaves. “The autumnal coloring is fine,” according to Harriot L. Keeler in Our Northern Shrubs (1903) “melting from dull red into rose pink, even upon occasion fading into cream-white. Rarely, an entire clump will be cream-white, or cream-white flushed with pink, - again a single bush will vary from old rose to cream-white. The effect is startling.” To become acquainted with this effect is reason enough to become familiar with this member of the prominent viburnum family.

   The trail begins to descend through this attractive young forest as it enters onto property owned by St. Paul’s School. After passing a stand of beech, several of the trees mature, I come to a dedicated bench:

In Memoriam
Mena Vestal French
‘Pilgrim and lover of Nature’s World”

   I don’t know who she is, but I did find Ms. French’s name on the 1930 list of the Cooper Ornithological Club, a list which included some prominent naturalists of the early 1900s.      

   There’s lots of sun shining through the canopy, lighting up the yellow leaves of beech and witch hazel. I approach one of those witch hazel shrubs and see that the blossoms, which began to show a few weeks ago, are well out now. It’s been said that the abundance or scarcity of witch hazel blossoms predicts the number of witches out on Halloween. I have no reason to doubt this. A blue jay suddenly cries out, and a chipmunk calls out its high-pitched series of squeaks.

   The trail is rocky through this forest. New York fern is turning white, and the graceful leaves of wild oats are yellow. I walk from the bench toward the edge of the pond, passed black birch and witch hazel, both of which dominate this area. White pine and hemlock grow here as well; and taller oaks rise above the surrounding tree canopy. I see Indian pipe on the ground, already well passed its peak, turning brownish now. These small but ghostly apparitions, typically four of five congregating, some still blackish-white with an upturned pipe bowl and some wilted to the “bone” [stem] to brown, seem to haunt this October woods.

 Great Turkey Pond

The pond is surrounded by hemlocks, tupelo and red maple. I’m disappointed that the tupelo leaves haven’t turned their typical crimson. Goldthread is on the right side with some royal fern mixed in. Alice Lounsberry in A Guide to the Wild Flowers (1899) calls goldthread a “fragile, sprightly little flower, with its wide-awake expression….” Unfortunately, its blooms don’t last long. The leaves, however, are evergreen, and so one can mark the spot where it grows and return the following early spring to see it in bloom. Its name comes from the color of its roots. “The curious, twining roots remind one of a bunch of copper wire,” Loundsberry wrote, “that has been much tangled. New England country people boast greatly of their efficacy when stewed down for a spring tonic.”

   The trail alongside Great Turkey Pond is rocky and dark from the dense hemlock canopy. Highbush blueberry is turning red, some maroon. I see whorled loosestrife, white lettuce, aster, winterberry, sheep laurel, trailing arbutus leaves, more witch hazel and a nice stand of barberry.

   Then, I come to a brook that runs into the pond. Days before, when I visited the pond with my wife, we saw an opening to the pond with turtle eggs dug up by a coyote, probably. So far, I haven’t seen any openings to the pond, and so I backtrack, passed a patch of bugleweed, and a sign for the Great Turkey Pond Loop. I continue straight on that trail until I see another bench with the same dedication. To the right of the bench, I see a trail that leads to the edge of the pond. The trail runs beneath red maples, birch and beside alder, New York asters, chokecherry and small goldenrod.

   The foliage surrounding the pond is spectacular! I feel as though this is the best autumn foliage season I’ve ever seen, and this, the best place to view it. The color-shades – red maple reds and oranges, red oak maroons, birch and sugar maple yellows, tupelo crimsons, ash plum, evergreen greens – are vibrant and surround me as I look out over the water. The colors and shape of the trees are reflected in the water, adding to the depth of this picturesque pond.

   I head back toward the West End Farm Trail, back toward the brook. I see lady’s slipper and sarsaparilla on my way through this pretty hemlock forest. I decide to leave the trail and bushwhack to the pond. Soon, I’m walking over sphagnum moss and pushing through highbush blueberry and sweet gale. It’s wet here, about twenty feet from the water. Carefully, I step over the moist tussocks. Rattlesnake grass is a pale, straw color, New York aster is still in bloom, its blue rays a bit wilted now, and swamp loosestrife’s whorls of seed pods have formed from the pretty whorls of pink blooms. This last water-loving plant is also known as waterwillow, a name I prefer to avoid confusion with the more widely known invasive species, purple loosestrife. 

   Marsh St. Johnswort plants and yellow loosestrife’s bare spikes are leaning into the pond-side grasses, which includes three-way sedge. It’s always a pleasure to connect with our past, and the Marsh St. Johnswort that grows abundantly here does just that. “The shores of Turkey Pond are rosy with the marsh St. Johnswort…,” wrote Francis M. Abbott in Birds and Flowers About Concord, New Hampshire (1906). Turkey Pond is not the same pond as Great Turkey Pond, but for me this adjacent pond is close enough to make this connection. 

   I walk alongside the pond, over the sphagnum moss, toward a stand of maleberry. After looking for any remaining maleberry blossoms, I look down and see pitcher plants, three blooms on long stems, standing about two feet tall and many cupped leaves beneath. I didn’t expect to see pitcher plants here, but it makes sense; many of these large ponds have encroaching sphagnum moss and bog-like characteristics. These plants are growing beside a rock, about three feet from the edge of the pond. The leaves contain water, which captures and helps to digest those insects that hazard inside. I’m amazed that these cupped leaves are able to retain so much rain water or moisture from the air. It’s been a fairly dry summer, and yet, these well-like leaves are still more than half filled with water. Four more pitcher plant blooms grow close by, nearby a stand of spirea. These leaves  are filled with water.

   Abbott doesn’t mention seeing pitcher plants in 1906; certainly, it’s a plant worth mentioning if he did find it here. This makes me wonder when it first appeared here and what the shores of Great Turkey Pond might have looked like 109 years ago.

   Farther along the water’s edge, I see sundew, another carnivorous plant, growing from the sphagnum moss. Several slender, browned flower – now seed-filled - spikes grow from this moist moss to about four or five inches tall. The green spoon-shaped leaves, covered with red protruding mucilaginous glands, are buried within the sphagnum and a bit old. These sticky leaves capture and digest any unfortunate insect that becomes stuck as it ventures across them or alights upon them.

   I leave the pond-side and return to the trail, passed a beaver-cut tree, only about an inch diameter, and some barbed wire. This barbed wire fence, about thirty feet from the pond, consists of rusted metal poles that hold the two levels of barbed wire, about two and four feet off the ground. These were most likely set here during the early or middle part of the last century (1900s), to keep livestock, most likely cows, from wandering into the water.

   Back at the trail, I see trailing arbutus, cucumber root, silverrod goldenrod, willow-herb with parted pods, split and shedding seeds born on downy filaments. I hear a red squirrel chirping, probably warning other wildlife of my arrival in their forest. Chickadees and chipmunks do this as well. And, Canada geese seem to warn other ducks whenever they notice me; but, I think geese squawk at me for more selfish reasons. Nevertheless, wood ducks tend to pay attention and fly away when they hear the geese.

   There’s a wide open area to the left and below the trail. It’s filled with more willow-herb, wild peanut growing up barberry, sensitive fern, dogwood and royal fern. White birch grows here, its leaves turning brownish, while the leaves of elm are turning yellow. Witch hazel grows over a nearby brook, with meadow-rue and mad-dog skullcap growing from its dry bed. Mad-dog skullcap’s blooms are blue, but they’re not as conspicuous as these helmet- or skull-shaped seed pods. “When the seeds begin to form,” wrote Neltje Blanchan in Nature’s Garden (1900), “and the now useless corolla drops off, the helmet-like appendage on the top of the calyx enlarges and meets the lower lip [of the bloom], so enclosing and protecting the tiny nutlets. After their maturity, either the mouth gapes from dryness, or the appendage drops off altogether, from the same cause, to release the seeds.”

   The name “mad-dog” refers to the old belief that this plant was a sure cure for hydrophobia, which is simply another name for rabies.    

   Upstream, I see long-awned wood grass, Jack-in-the-pulpit, its red berries formed, and false nettle, most of the plants bare of their leaves, the exposed seed pod spikes up-curved. I turn to my right when I hear a pileated woodpecker calling out. Another pileated is responding from somewhere deeper in the forest. I look through the trees, hoping to see this large black woodpecker crashing through the branches. Because it stays close to the tree’s trunk, it isn’t easy to see, but every so often I get lucky. After watching for several minutes without seeing it, I turn back to the trail. I’m actually content to hear the pileated’s call alone. Though I prefer to experience with all my senses whatever Nature offers to me, I also want diverse experiences, which might mean hearing without seeing. It isn’t easy to fully appreciate the call and response of a pair of pileated woodpeckers and linger on what that means without having the desire to see at least one of them. But, until I learn to do that, I’ll never fully appreciate the more subtle experiences of my life.      

   I come to the so-called “Blue Trail,” which runs back toward the old orchard on the Audubon property, but it’s temporarily closed, so I continue on West End Farm Trail, deeper into land owned by St. Paul’s School.

   Still walking alongside the pond, I see hazelnut, without any fruit, Virginia creeper turning red and climbing up a white ash, catbrier climbing up a shrub, the catbrier leaves turning a mottled yellowish-brown, while the ash leaves are yellow. Ash’s most interest autumn foliage color, in my opinion, is deep plum rather than yellow; yellow is already so well represented in our autumn landscape. I’ll forgive this ash tree, however, because ash trees are a sentimental favorite of mine and the emerald ash borer is killing off large numbers of them throughout New England. It’s a graceful tree that was a favorite source of wood for our American ancestors. Its strength and flexibility made it valuable for a wide variety of farm implements, carriages, and, in more recent times, tennis rackets and baseball bats. “The white ash is one of the noblest trees in the American forest,” wrote Julia Ellen Rogers in Trees (1926), “the peer of the loftiest oak or walnut. When young it is slim and graceful, but it grows sturdier as it approaches maturity, lifting stout, spreading branches above a tall, massive trunk.” It seems to me a fine metaphor for our own growth as human beings; and, for my children, I hope they grow into sturdy adults, spreading their influence far and wide from a firm and honest foundation. It’s always a pleasure to see a white ash tree growing over a brook that winds its way through a forest. Here it competes well with the more abundant pines, oaks, maples and hickories.

   There’s a fairly open area to my left with interesting rock formations, including a three-foot diameter bowl made from rocks, and hundreds of other loose rocks strewn about. The wonderful blog, http://rockpiles.blogspot.com/, focuses on these unusual rock formations. I plan to email photos to this blog for any insight the blogger might have. This sort of human activity often presents a fun mystery about a property’s previous land use. The barbed wire I saw earlier has already heightened my interest in trying to better understand what went on here over the past hundred years at least. Are these rock formations a piece of the same puzzle?  

   I return to the yellow-slashed trail, and walk alongside an old stone wall made of very large stones. I look to my right, and over a patch of white lettuce, I see an open area where trees have apparently been cut. I wait to explore this open area. Instead, I follow a trail to my left that leads toward the pond, passed sweet fern, scrub oak and maleberry. I step onto an outcrop that overlooks the pond and beautiful foliage views.

   Beautiful yellow paper birch leaves light the woodland edge facing the water. Buttonbush mixed with alder, grows in a thicket alongside the outcrop. A dragonfly darting over this outcrop reminds me that dragonflies are almost all gone now. I notice movement in the pond. It’s a painted turtle swimming within the shallow water, amid the arums and water grasses. Where is it going? Is it looking for a place to overwinter? It’s a bit early for that. Perhaps it’s simply looking for food or a place to leave the water so it can sun itself on this beautiful day.

   I leave the pond and cross the trail to the above-mentioned clearing. I see a chickadee pulling apart the blooms of white aster; flat-topped white aster, I believe. It seems an odd way to look for insects, but what else could it be doing? And, a yellow-rumped warbler is flitting about, low in the birches; and, a white-throated sparrow is perched on a raised branch in a dense thicket. I see another darker bird that I have trouble identifying, and then a blue jay flies over the open field and lands on the limb of some tree at the far edge. Aspen and maple grow here as well.

   I return to the trail and see a chipmunk with a small ball of brown leaves in its mouth. Are these old sweet fern leaves? Royal fern leaflets? Is it for its winter nest? It stops as I walk by and then scurries off. Long-awned woodgrass leans over the trail farther along, above whorled-leaved aster. This is a pretty mixed forest with beautiful color. I see partridgeberry with red berries lining the trail, and then I cross another brook, with stagnant water in it. Growing on the opposite side are cucumber root, goldthread, cinnamon fern turning white, bracken fern and high-bush blueberry.

   I cross over a stone wall that crosses the trail and stretches to the pond, and then I pass a patch of hayscented fern and New York fern. Canada geese are noisily flying over the pond, and wish I had a view of them; but the pond is blocked by a mass of trees. Hawthorn grows alongside this trail, the inch-long thorns protruding ominously from the branches. The northern shrike, a particularly brutal bird, uses these hawthorn spikes to impale its prey, typically a frog, so that it can more easily eat it. I’ve never seen this myself, nor have I ever seen a shrike. They arrive in our area during some winters, but their appearance is very irregular. I’d probably confuse it for a mockingbird if I did see one! I’m short-sighted when it comes to rare birds; I default to the assumption that I’m seeing a more common bird.

   To the left is a large, exposed, lowland area that stretches out toward the pond for seventy-five feet. I continue on this raised trail, through a mixed forest with some mature trees. Soon, I approach a wide-spreading stand of hayscented fern mixed with cinnamon fern. Looking through the trees to my left I notice that the pond has transitioned into a wet marsh.

   There’s lots of yellow in this forest with touches of reds and maroon. I see dewberry as I cross a small boardwalk over another brook with still water. High-bush blueberry hangs over it, and on the far side, I see the tiny, powder-blue fruits of starflower. As the leaves of starflower wilt away, the fruits remain exposed at the tip of a slender Y-shaped stem, standing about three inches tall.

  I can hear Route 89 ahead of me as I leave this forest and approach the paved bike trail, which runs alongside the highway. I turn right, toward the Audubon property. Beech, black birch and hemlock grow over this trail, with bunchberry, haircap moss, small flowered asters, New York fern, hayscented fern, cinnamon fern and wild oats growing on the ground.

   The noise is reduced ahead as the trail moves away from the highway. Bunchberry grows to the right, on the forest side, and a quaking aspen grove grows to the left. Just beyond the aspen, I sep onto an old field. I hear a robin and see pokeweed, a favorite of robins. Pokeweed is a plant of my childhood. I can remember vividly those days when I would enjoy crushing the juicy purple-black fruit, my hands becoming stained. In the opinion of Mabel Osgood Wright in Flowers and Ferns in Their Haunts (1901), “Pokeweed gradually leaves the procession of weeds, and develops decided picturesque qualities, filling the corners of fields and pastures with its richly-colored groups, and reaching over gray stone walls and old fences to dangle its fruit by the roadside.” Wright mentions that the “fresh shoots of this plant are sometimes cooked by country folk in lieu of Asparagus.” She also warns that one must be careful not to eat the roots, which are poisonous.

   I see goldenrod and a large stand of milkweed opposite the open field. As I admire the many milkweed pods, most of them having burst open with seeds and filament bursting out, I see a sulphur moth flying lazily over the trail as if a yellow birch leaf has broken free and is fluttering in the day’s breeze.

   At the end of this trail, I turn right and walk along the paved Silk Farm Road back to my car.   

Fall Foliage at Turkey Pond