Last weekend I took a short walk around the wildlife pond at Beaver Brook Association in Hollis, NH. I parked at the area right off of Route 130. The trails are well marked and I opted to take the wildlife trail. A few folks were fishing and lots of people were taking advantage of the nice weather. I plan to measure the distance on my next visit and will update this posting to reflect that.
It is a bit early for the spring flowers such as trillium to emerge, but noticed these lily pads with a purple hue. I saw a log that was covered with resting painted turtles but I didn’t have a telephoto to capture the shot. It is a great place and I plan to visit again.
Spatterdock Pond, note the purplish lily pads and one of the beaver lodges
Another view of the wildlife pond at Beaver Brook Association in Hollis, NH.
Beaver Brook Association is comprised of 2,187 acres of forest, fields, and wetlands in Hollis, Brookline, and Milford, New Hampshire. The land lies where the southern transitional forest meets the northern hardwood forest, creating a diverse landscape of interest to the naturalist and the hiker alike. With 35 miles of trails, the area provides a quiet and contemplative setting for daytime excursions. Forest and wildlife management is practiced throughout the property for the purposes of demonstrating sustainable forestry practices and wildlife habitat techniques to protect and encourage a diverse array of native species. BBA also protects significant portions of two watersheds and has designated natural areas that will be left unmanaged in perpetuity. We encourage the public to visit our forest, which is open from dawn to dusk seven days a week, and rediscover the natural world.
We had a discussion about the Kinder-Morgan natural gas pipeline at Winter’s Summer Farm, an event billed as a “Gas Blast”. I took the opportunity to visit the beaver dam and take a few photos.
“Our state’s beautiful natural environment – from our Seacoast, lakes and rivers to our forests and our mountains – is an important part of why we all love and live in New Hampshire,” Former Governor John Lynch
I took a nice walk with a few of the members of the New Ipswich Photo Club to see some of the areas that will be impacted if the proposed Kinder Morgan natural gas pipeline is approved by FERC in Autumn of 2015. These photos were taken on a small portion of the Wapack Trail that runs through Windblown Cross Country Skiing and Snowshoeing in New Ipswich, NH.
This small pond will be excavated for the pipeline construction. The pond is located under the power lines through the trail. The pipeline is planned to be run in parallel with transmissions lines whenever possible , a practice called collocation. However this presents certain problems due to induced currents from Alternating Current. A buffer zone is required between the lines and the pipe. At that location the pipeline will cross under the lines.
Not far from the small pond is a larger pond with a wonderful view of Barrett Mountain. We tried to get a photo of the beaver swimming across but he eluded us.
I noticed some sundew plants alone the shoreline in the spagnum moss
Lady slippers are a common sight in June in the forest
Many of the homeowners in the path have posted their land. In some instances the surveyors have ignored these.
Kinder Morgan has launched a $70,000 WMUR advertising campaign promoting the pipeline. I noted that the comment section has been disabled on this YouTube video. Guess they don’t want any feedback.
Read about the true cost of natural gas at Amazon.com
Poltrack Pix 