One
of Windham’s most pleasant places may well be the Presumpscot Regional
Land Trust’s beautiful Black Brook Preserve. Situated between Route 302 and
202, Black Brook Preserve contains 105 acres of gently rolling hills, mature
forests, and meandering little creeks just begging to be discovered. Our family
has enjoyed several hikes along the preserve’s well-labeled trails, which offer
enough variation to hold even a five-year-old hiker’s attention. This past
summer, the Presumpscot Regional Land Trust added another attraction to Black
Brook Preserve: a pollinator garden.
This
1,000 square foot garden is home to 12 varieties of native plants and will
provide much needed habitat for our butterflies, bees and moths. The garden was
built this summer with the help of Windham Recreation Department's
Summer Day Campers, who came out to learn about pollinators, lend a hand in
building the garden, and cultivate the skills they will need as the next
generation of environmental stewards. After its construction, the new garden
was tended by Land Trust summer interns.
Black
Brook Preserve’s pollinator garden is directly in front of the site’s
main parking lot off of Windham Center Road. It’s a wonderful place to stop
before a hike and search for some of our more colorful local pollinators, like
the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly or their more famous cousin the
orange-and-black Monarch butterfly.
Upon
our arrival in the parking lot, however, my two little assistants were more
interested in running down the trails than admiring butterflies and bees or
listening to their mother describe the vital role pollinators play in the local
ecosystem. Happily, with its gentle bends and frequent, clear trail markings,
Black Brook Preserve is the ideal place to explore with children. My assistants
enjoyed racing up and down hills, pulling our new puppy behind them, while my
husband and I tried to keep up. Together, we followed the Diamond Trail along
the perimeter of the preserve, stopping to climb on rocks and admire the “bog
bridges” spanning muddy sections of the trail. In one muddy section, Sage, my
nine-year-old daughter, spotted raccoon tracks crossing the trail. Her
five-year-old brother Ian seemed a bit disappointed to learn raccoons are not
pollinators.
The
western section of Black Brook Preserve is an open field ringed by a large,
mown path. Sage decided to race through the field by herself while the rest of
the family stopped for snacks and water. A few minutes later, the tranquility
of the preserve was broken by screams and squawks as an enormous turkey erupted
from the tall grass beside the trail.
“That
was huge!” Sage screamed as she ran back to us.
“Was
that a pollinator?” Ian asked.
I
explained that, while wild turkeys don’t pollinate flowers, they do eat
insects. After the turkey incident, the kids stayed closer to us as we followed
the trail through the grass, watching butterflies dance above the nodding seed
heads and late summer flowers. At the hill’s apex, we found a second, smaller
trail access connected to Route 202. If you decide to visit Black Brook
Preserve, this is the place to turn around and retrace your steps along the
trails; the Snowmobile Trail, as we discovered, is only a trail in the winter.
In the summer, it’s home to a very healthy crop of poison ivy.
To
visit Black Brook Preserve’s trails and new pollinator garden, look for
the parking lot off Windham Center Road just south of Route 4. A full map can
be found at the Presumpscot Regional Land Trust’s website: www.prlt.org
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