Milford Earth Day Blog

I see that the City has cut down and pushed aside the  dead pine tree that was leaning over  the trail on the West River side of the larger pond.   The top of the dead pine had fallen into  a sycamore tree behind the house next to Kennedy School and beside being an eyesore overhanging the trail covered with  bittersweet vines  it could have been hazardous had it fallen.

Here's Jack

Wow! My favorite woodland flower the Jack-in-the-Pulpit are up.  They seemed to have sprung up overnight as I’ve been  looking for them.  They can be seen in the boggy area alongside the trail behind JFK school.  The flowering crab between the two ponds is about to bust open with flowers and throughout the open space the hawthorn shrubs are blossoming.  ( I think they are some sort of hawthorn shrub)  Our two swans come and go and have now been absent for three days now.  Hopefully they will not come back as I’m glad to see them gone.

Had to don full foul weather gear to take the dog on his morning walk today.  Water everywhere, lots and lots of it!  All the spill ways and the Beaverbrook pipe are roaring big time.  The upper pond continues to drain across the trail at a pretty good  rate.  With the ground saturated, I hope with the predicted winds that no more trees come down.  

cleared stand of flowering crab apple

I’ve been working on a small thicket of flowering crab apple at the trail intersection between the large and upper pond.   It was so overgrown with cat briers they were pulling the thicket over and killing them.  I finished removing all the brier this weekend.  I’ll attach a picture of my granddaughter by that thicket last year.  The thicket was in full bloom and smelled so good.

Mondo Ponds – Monday March 29^th

Everything is pretty quiet on the ponds because of the cooler weather and this week with all the predicted rain it will probably be the same.  The water rushing over the trail from the upper pond into the larger one was heavier than I ever remembered.   Darn, it was almost over my boots and I though I was going to get washed away. 

Well at least with all this rain the ponds are getting a good flushing.   A couple of small trees fell down across the train behind JFK school.  The limbs and vines were completely blocking the trail.  I don’t know what type of trees they are but they have a very shallow root system.  The weight from a dense mat of bittersweet vines that covered them contributed to them falling over.  I managed to clear the trail using a bow saw and pruning shears.  There is still one bigger dead fall tree overhanging the trail that should be cut down.  I was going to take a go at it but I was already soaking wet from the rain after cutting back the others.  

Mondo Ponds – Rainy Tuesday, March 23

You will need waterproof boots to walk the trails this morning.  It will be a lot nicer when the trails from the Naugatuck Parking lot have a nice layer of wood chips on them as the mud can be slippery in places.  The small upper pond is draining across the trail into the larger pond at a pretty good rate. 

The swallows were out in force this morning skimming over the large pond for insects.  There were more Canadian geese on the large pond this morning, I counted over two dozen.  I watched one drag out battle between two male Canadian geese.  It lasted for some time before one finally gave up.   It did one of those panic flights, half running and flapping across the top of the water to escape.  It settled down on the other side of the pond and the victor returned to the flock.   The larger swan, standing on a small submerged rock, seemed to be taking in all the commotion.   

I see the stand of pussy willows are in bloom along the trail that runs between the upper and larger pond.   For some reason the fuzzy buds are only at the top of the trees this year.  There are no buds on the lower branches; the wife seems to think that maybe the early warm weather has something to do with it.

Bill P.

I put up the notices on discarding fishing line at both parking lot entrances this afternoon.  Don’t know how long they will last because all notices have a habit of being torn down within a day or so.

Not a nice subject and something I’ve had to take care of a number of times.  This afternoon I cleaned up someone’s disgusting mess alongside the trail between the ponds.  I know nature can call unexpectedly, but just leave it in plain sight and then throw all their clean up material into the bushes is just plain ignorant.   Guess it takes all kinds to make up this world!

Saying from my camping group:  Let no man say to my shame that all was clean before I came.

Bill P.

The ponds this morning were hauntingly beautiful shrouded with fog.  Our resident blue heron, whom I’ve not seen for a while, has returned to the large pond.  He glided in ghost like while I was watching the mute swans.   A flock of about seven Canadian geese noisily took flight and disappeared into the fog.   I’m sure they are not residents and were using the pond as an overnight stopover. 

There were a good number of fishermen on all the ponds this weekend.  Again I was surprised and delighted to find very little litter.  I did however have to remove or pickup a number of mono filament fishing line tangles.  Half were carelessly discarded and left lying on the ground and the rest I pulled out of the brush.  Either it is carelessness or people are unaware of the dangers discarded fishing line posses to wildlife.  I think I will copy the reminder and warning from the Connecticut Angler’s Guide and post it on the two parking lot entrances.  Almost all the fishermen I talked to this weekend said the fish were not biting and several said the water may still be too cold. 

Bill P.

We had a great 1st day down at Mondo Ponds yesterday. Bill was nice enough to meet us down there and give us a tour of the major issues we are dealing with in the area.

After our tour, the students worked at removing bittersweet, lining the trails with fallen logs and removing the white pipes.

Quick summary…

1st priority is the BIITERSWEET that has murdered some of those evergreens down there! More victims will come if we don’t deal with that situation right away. It will be a big focus for Earth Day as well as for my students the rest of the semester. We will start by just clipping at the bottom-cutting the water supply off to the vines growing on the trees. We can discuss where we want the restoration efforts to go from there-

2nd priority will be trail maintenance.

We will assess at the best way to naturally diverge water flowing across the trail so that there are isolated spots of run off rather than large bodies of water crossing the trail when the water level is so high.

We will also assess the areas of the trail that are severely eroded and research the best ways to stop the erosion.

Woodchips will be laid in the areas of the trail that become overgrown during the summer.

Gravel will be laid in only specific areas where the mud becomes too soft to walk over.

3rd Priority will be native plant assessment
What plants are we going to incorporate to provide better food and shelter for the wildlife down there? What ones will thrive in that type of habitat? These are question the students will research and answer-grant money will be used to purchase specific native plants and will be planted during our June 5th Grand re-opening and celebrations!

*On a side note-we will hopefully have time to build a new KIOSK for the entrance of the park where we can put back the sign that posts the “rules and regulations” for park users.

The trails are drying nicely after all our rains.  There are still some areas of standing water and mud but they can be easily bypassed.  This morning I met an elderly fellow on my morning walk who said he had recently moved to Milford and had just discovered the ponds.  After our mutual greetings he made a comment that I just must share.    He threw out his arms and looking around he said, “Is this a gift or what!”  I had never thought of our open space in that manner but his comment made me see how I and others should look upon the Mondo Pond Open Space.  Real nice gentleman and I am sure I will see him again on the trails enjoying our little space of nature.

Gosh darn! The two mute swans are back again in the larger pond.  I was hoping they had moved on but it looks like they are a pair and will probably be nesting on the island below the pipe spillway.  The Canadian geese were making a lot of racket this morning.  Looks like they are still pair bonding and will be looking for nesting areas.   A lone fisherman commented on the activity of beavers swimming on the large pond.  He looked a little disappointed when I told him they were muskrats and yes they are as busy as beavers.   Couple of weeks from now you may see the male muskrats with their tails raised high up out of the water.  It must be some sort of courtship thing.   With their tails up you can see the water vibrating around them, I think they are making some sort of low inaudible noise to attract a mate. 

I met with Anneliese and her students this morning.  Wonderful group and what an energetic group of teenagers.  I accompanied them a tour of the trails and gave them my suggestions as to what I think would benefit the trails.  When I left the group, about mid morning, they were busy cutting and pruning out the evasive vines at the entrance by JFK school.  The young men were busy picking up and defining the trail edges with deadfall trees.  Several others were removing the ugly white drainage pipes that extended out from under the trail.  If Subway is going to feed them for lunch they had better figure on a very hungry crew of hard workers.  I took some pictures that I will forward to Anneliese so she can post them with their names. 

Bill Pontin