The rest of our walk was not long, less than half a mile, skirting the edge of a wet meadow where sedges with their graceful, arching stems seemed to be competing for dominance with thickets of invasive multiflora rose. We heard field sparrows singing, unseen among the sedges, and a kestrel, smallest of our falcons, flew swiftly by. Such an astonishing diversity of habitats and vegetation types in this small area bordered by the creek — no wonder there is such an abundance and variety of birdlife here. Yet this place, like all natural places, is in transition, in the process of becoming a different kind of natural community. Will its biodiversity survive, or will the rosebushes take over completely? It’s hard to say, except that much depends on how the field is managed, whether and how often they are mowed or brush hogged. I, for one, hope the meadows are kept open, for this kind of habitat, the kind needed by bluebirds, bobolinks, and other grassland species, is increasingly rare in our region.
On such a short walk, one instinctively calibrates one’s pace to the scale of the terrain, pausing to savor things overlooked entirely, or just glanced at in passing on longer excursions. A white-tailed dragonfly poised on a grass stem, wings glinting in the sun, a golden snail extending its “horns,” the tasseled auburn and violet flowers of grasses — these things, and others like them, were the highlights of our saunter. And we were grateful for the opportunity to notice and linger over them afforded us by the modest, unassuming character of this town preserve. A more impressive site, with sweeping vistas, draws our view outward toward the distant horizon, but an unprepossessing corner of the countryside such as this one invites our attention to the small, and the near at hand. We had come upon a place that spoke to us in a voice so quiet it was almost a whisper, and in the waning hours of that afternoon we were ready to listen.
