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Wildlife |
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Deer, raccoon,
beaver, mink, otter, muskrat, and red fox can be found around the Pond,
Among the
most common nesting birds are wood duck, goldfinch, purple finch,
phoebe, robins, juncos, blue jays, grackles, mockingbirds, catbirds,
Carolina and house wrens, cedar waxwing, red-winged blackbirds,
rough-winged swallows, cardinals, northern orioles, great blue herons,
crows, chickadees, tufted titmice, white and red breasted nuthatches,
brown creepers, hairy and downy woodpeckers, rose-breasted grosbeaks,
cowbirds, and catbirds, along with yellow shafted flickers, song, fox,
chipping, and white-throated sparrows, mallard ducks, Canada geese,
belted kingfisher, red-tailed hawks, broad-wing hawks, Coopers hawk,
barred owls, and great-horned owls. Other visitors include scarlet
tanagers, ospreys, indigo buntings, green herons, night herons,
solitary sandpipers, black duck, cormorants, ring-necked ducks, common
goldeneyes, buffleheads, snowy egret, great egret, pied-billed grebes,
American mergansers, hooded mergansers, and wild turkeys. |
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Vegetation |
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American
beech, northern red oak, sugar maple, Norway maple, red maple, scarlet
oak, white oak, striped maple, ash, larch, eastern hop hornbeam,
shagbark hickory, sycamore, and white, yellow, and gray birch are among
the hardwoods that grow in the area. Evergreens include white In upland areas shrubs such as low-bush blueberry, wintergreen, club moss, mountain laurel, elderberry, sassafras, maple leaf viburnum, glossy buckthorn, chokecherry and witch hazel are common. In the wetlands winterberry, sweet pepper bush, speckled alder, silky and red osier dogwood, swamp azalea, spicebush, tussock sedge, soft rush, reed canary grass, arrow arum, water arum, blue flag, yellow flag, high-bush blueberry, barberry, greenbrier, skunk cabbage, arrow wood, buttonbush, sensitive, ostrich, royal and a variety of other ferns are among the many plants that thrive. Wildflowers
include Jack-in-the-pulpit, ginseng, whorled loosestrife, Canadian
Mayflower, teaberry, meadow rue, yarrow, wild mint, early meadow rue,
wild sarsaparilla, pokeweed, jewelweed, false Solomon's seal,
speedwell, smooth Solomon's seal, Indian pipe, pink lady's-slipper,
partridge berry, spotted wintergreen, pipsissewa, St. John's wort,
starflower, trillium, bunchberry, rue anemone, wood anemone, swamp
dewberry, bluets, and wild geranium. |
in
addition to the ubiquitous chipmunk and gray and red squirrels. Coyotes
and "fishercats" have been observed. Reptiles include milk and garter
snakes, water snakes, newts, salamanders, and several turtle species. 
