Serendipity

Thankfully, the eagle was a perfect excuse to cut my walk short. By midmorning the temperature had risen to only 7 degrees, and though it was the day before the big storm, there was still several inches of snow at the H. E. Preston Sanctuary from the last one. No path to follow. The Little River might have been near Hudson Bay instead of half a mile away. It was windy and darn cold out. Was I nuts? This is another valuable Joshua’s Trust preserve, both as itself and as a steppingstone for wildlife along the Little River’s north/south corridor. Although I’ve hiked here several times, it hasn’t yet been part of this blog…and I’m running out of preserves. So here I was.

It’s easy to drive around our quiet and charming Last Green Valley and think it’s barely changed for the last 50 years. But the past is an uncertain reference point. Steward Scott Matthies on the small brook by the entrance gate: “there was an invasive removal project about 15 years ago which has been pretty successful, having removed a nearly 100% barberry cover allowing native plants to come in.” Far fewer invasive plants were here thirty years ago when we acquired this property; now there is a complete collection. The big field is hayed annually, which keeps it from being ravaged, and the smaller field, mowed yearly, had a prescribed burn last year to keep native grasses vigorous and remove woody plants. Ecosystems need that kind of help now as they get stretched beyond their capacity to recuperate.

I had followed the deer hoofprints around the gate and out into the field when I noticed the dark shape high up in a far tree, so I set off at a diagonal in hopes that the bird would think I wasn’t concerned with it. Hawk? Turkey Vulture? Bald Eagle? I knew there was no hope that it would think I didn’t see it; an eagle, if that’s what it was, can see a rabbit miles away. For sure it was watching my eyes. I stopped again higher on the hill and fished my phone out.

This 107-acre property, with its variety of habitats and aesthetic quality, is worth a walk (I recommend a sunny spring day in the 70s). With continued care it will stay beautiful and biologically effective into the future, a satisfying outcome for a property that a 1976 real estate study concluded “best use residential subdivision.” I’ll take the eagle over the subdivision. I’ll take the stream with native trout and its riparian corridor too, the upland and bottomland forest canopy and the grasslands, rare in CT these days. Add a bit of an old orchard and the potential for Wood Turtles, also rare. A century ago, it would have been a miracle to see an eagle, or a turkey, or even the white-tailed deer whose prints were everywhere. In fact, with all those elements it’s a perfect little preserve.

After a photo or two I continued ‘innocently’ angling nearer the bird, hoping for a better shot. I almost got one. But when I peeked again, it leisurely rose and sailed off into the ice blue winter sky. Smarter than me.

I wasn’t going to walk as far as the bench on the river anyway, where, as Scott says, people can “contemplate everything from an itchy mosquito bite to their place in the universe”. You’d need snowshoes to get there now. My feeling is, you mess with serendipity at your peril, so I hightailed it. Did I say it was very cold out?

George Jacobi