Nature in Estabrook Woods

(Caption: "Polypody Fern, Bateman's Pond." Photo by Herbert W. Gleason (from Gleason's Through the Year With Thoreau [1917]).

"[In] the midst of the dry and rustling leaves...it stands so freshly green and full of life... The bare outline of the polypody thrills me strangely....It is a fabulous, mythological form" (Thoreau at Bateman's Pond on Nov. 2, 1857). Click here for a recent image of the polypody at Bateman's.

On Feb. 5, 2002, the first annotated checklist of Estabrook's birds was published, containing data on 159 species that have been seen in Estabrook Woods over the last 35 years. This is a large, varied, and interesting list for a forest. It contains birds of great visual beauty: for example, 32 species of warblers--the jewels of springtime. And great aural beauty: the Winter Wren and six species of thrush, including the Veery and Wood and Hermit Thrushes. And of predatory drama: four species of owl and ten of hawks, including breeding Great Horned Owls and Goshawks. 5 of these species are state-listed by the Natural Heritage Program, and 40 are listed as of conservation priority by Partners in Flight, an organization particularly concerned with risks facing intercontinental migrants both on their breeding and wintering grounds. Attached is an appendix of a list of 104 species seen by Middlesex School students and masters in 1904. (Painting is of the Cerulean Warbler, which requires large forest acreage and was seen on Middlesex School's development area.)

 In October, 2001, Massachusetts declared Estabrook Woods is CORE HABITAT which should be saved to preserve the state's biodiversity. Click here for information on BioMap and Secretary Durand's announcement.

Biodiversity Bibliography

Estabrook has a surprisingly extensive natural history bibliography. In April, 2002, a new bibliography of the biodiversity and natural history of the Estabrook Woods was issued. It contains more than sixty-five technical papers, surveys, and studies of many types of animals and plants in Estabrook Woods. The bibliography also includes 400 studies done in this part of the Sudbury-Concord River valley area. It is the result of one hundred sixty years of observation by many naturalists. Ernst Mayr, famed evolutionary biologist, wrote, "Your bibliography, obviously a labor of love, is a great achievement and will be one of the foundations of all ecological research done in the area."

A fisher lives near Bateman's Pond. Photo in late winter, 2003, by wildlife photographer and naturalist Jamie Christian, Middlesex Class of 1989, at http://www.james-christian.com/

Annual Musketquid Festival celebration of Estabrook Woods

Here is a picture of joyous Middlesex students celebrating Estabrook at the Musketaquid Festival Parade in Concord.

The giant wings are a puppet of the endangered dragonfly, first discovered in Bateman's Pond by a long-time Middlesex master, Reginald Heber Howe, in 1903. Thus, the globally-endangered dragonfly is, in fact, MIDDLESEX'S DRAGONFLY. Also click here for a larger version of this picture [36K]. The quote is Henry Thoreau's, written specifically about his "Easterbrooks Country" and Walden Woods:

"We boast of our system of education, but why stop at schoolmasters and schoolhouses? We are all schoolmasters and our schoolhouse is the universe. To attend chiefly to the desk or schoolhouse while we neglect the scenery* in which it is placed is absurd. If we do not look out we shall find our fine schoolhouse standing in the cowyard at last." [* for scenery, I think he also meant inspiration and natural history and all that the wild offers. As he said, "In wildness is the preservation of the world."]

Donald Griffin's work at Mink Pond

In the center of the woods, at Mink Pond (neighbor children called it Stump Pond), Prof. Donald Griffin does his research on beavers on the 700 acres owned by the Concord Field Station of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Click here for a larger view of the beaver lodge.

This is a picture of the professor standing next to his research site, a beaver lodge in Estabrook Woods. He's a retired professor from Harvard, Cornell, and Rockefeller, and has spent his life studying animal consciousness. In this experiment, he spends hours sitting on the top of the lodge, on a home made chair-stool, with a video camera. The lenses, mikes, and lights, are wired down through pipes (see them sticking up at the top of the lodge?) into the lodge, where he watches for hours the beaver families and their co-inhabitants, some mice. Often the sun will set and the woods turn black before he calls it a day.

Respect the privacy of his research site, please.

Donald Griffin (and the students that find their way to him) do the type of work Ernst Mayr dreamed would be done in Estabrook Woods. (At least one Middlesex School student found his way to Mink Pond to work with Prof. Griffin; that young man now does post-graduate beaver research in Colorado.)

Six hundred eighty acres of Estabrook Woods are the "Concord Field Station" <www.oeb.harvard.edu/cfs>, which is the ecological teaching field station for Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology and Harvard's Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. The Estabrook Woods provides land for population biology, plant physiology and behavioral ecology research, as well as for field laboratories run in conjunction with various undergraduate and graduate courses. (The Field Station's headquarters are three miles away in Bedford, where the focus is, unfortunately, on other types of research to the detriment of work in the woods.)

Ernst Mayr last year wrote Middlesex School people that, if the Woods were preserved, he would work with them to set up a curriculum that would take advantage of what Estabrook had to offer as an ecological classroom.

Thoreau found a type of wild in his Easterbrooks country and it is still there. We did not need the black bear (which spent the summer near Mink Pond in 1998) to tell us so.

Biodiversity Day in Estabrook Woods

The first Biodiversity Day was held on July 4, 1998. The goal was to identify more than 1000 species in Concord and Lincoln and spark a love of local nature. Estabrook Country was very much part of Biodiversity Day, as about 25 of the 125 local and national experts spent time there. Harvard's ant-man and thinker E. O. Wilson (to whom the Day was dedicated), Guy Tudor, Wayne Petersen, Paul Miliotis, Peter Alden and others trooped up the old Estabrook Road, spotting dragonflies, ants, aquatic beetles, fish, and other species. At Mink Pond, they met with Dr. Donald R. Griffin (above), who described his researches on a local beaver family inside its lodge at the pond. The final tally two-town-wide was 1,906 species, including 1,142 species of plants and fungi; 591 species of invertebrates; and 171 species of vertebrates; Peter Alden calls it the "World's First 1000+ species Biodiversity Day." This experience was so successful it is being replicated throughout the country and internationally. The most charismatic species seen in Estabrook Woods that day was a black bear, which spent the summer there. [Drawing "Wood Thrush in Estabrook Woods," by Jeannie Abbott, used with permission.]

Endangered species

State rare species habitat maps show Estabrook as a rich area. Vernal pools briefly form in the springtime and attract specially-adapted species (such as certain salamanders and frogs) for a brief breeding season. Other forest species are the Goshawk; Cerulean, Connecticut and Kentucky Warblers; Veery; and the Wood and Hermit Thrushes.

In particular, the Middlesex School's Estabrook land ( link ) contains habitat for five state-listed species (a globally-endangered dragonfly and four Species of Special Concern: the Blue Spotted Salamander, the Elderberry Long horned Beetle, the Spotted Turtle, and the Mystic Valley Amphipod). It is the breeding site of at least three watch list species (Spotted Salamander, Northern Leopard Frog, and Northern Goshawk).

Naturalist and author Peter Alden calls these woods "the teaching woods" for their variety. For more information on the impacts of Middlesex School's development project on Estabrook's rare species, click here.

A Middlesex School biology teacher, Peter Arnold, wrote of the rare amphibians and reptiles of the Estabrook Woods:

[ click here for his article ].

EPA and other Federal and state environmental agencies use Estabrook Woods as a vernal pool classroom.

The US Army Corps of Engineers hosted an environmental workshop for federal and state environmental and wildlife agencies in Estabrook Woods. Following a discussion on regulatory issues for vernal pools ­ subject to state and federal jurisdiction under several laws, attendees from the agencies saw both spotted salamander and wood frog egg masses as well as many fairy shrimp at two pools in Estabrook Woods.

"The frog larvae were hatching as we watched!" exclaimed Ruth Ladd of the Corps of Engineers. "We also saw some of the invertebrates such as diving beetles and caddisfly larvae." According to Ms. Ladd, the workshop and field trip were a success and met their expectations. "It was awesome," she said. "There was considerable enthusiasm from both the presenters and the participants. We are planning to hold a follow-up field trip in late summer to see how the pools have changed since the spring."

Estabrook Woods is a "Forest Legacy Area" under Act of Congress

On August 5, 1993, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy, in a memo to the Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, honored the entire Estabrook Woods by formally designating it a "Forest Legacy Area" under an Act of Congress for its environmental values, the presence of rare and endangered species, and archeological and historic resources, etc.
The proposed Middlesex development is within the boundaries of the Forest Legacy Area. The US Secretary of Agriculture's "Executive Summary" specifically names the proposed Middlesex project as one "which threaten[s] . . . the integrity of the Woods." His designation of Estabrook as a Forest Legacy Area made possible a $1.5 million federal grant for the 1996 purchase of a 73 acre conservation restriction on the Pippen Tree Farm at the southern edge of Estabrook Woods. The above photo is within that tract.

Lady's Slippers along the Minuteman Trail

Pink Lady's Slippers, an orchid very choosy about its habitat, can be found in these woods. Here they are beside the old Estabrook road near the lime kiln. The marker reads "2 Miles to the North Bridge." The marker was erected for the 1975 Bicentennial of the start of the American Revolution, for the old Estabrook road was a minuteman trail on the morning of April 19, 1775. Click for enlargement. (Photo by Jan Buerger.)

William Brewster of October Farm was Estabrook's neighbor.

This is October Farm on Monument Street. It was the beloved country home of naturalist and early conservation leader William Brewster (1851-1919). (Photo by Herbert Gleason, 1901. From Robbins Collection, permission of Thoreau Society.)
 

The Asa Gray Spring

In the middle of the 19th century, Estabrook naturalist Minot Pratt introduced the famed Harvard botanist Asa Gray to Estabrook Woods, and, it is said, named the spring where they sat and talked the "Asa Gray Spring." Pratt planted trillium near this spring and it has bloomed here ever since. This photo was taken in 2001.

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