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Friends of the Blue Hills |
Discover the Blue Hills Blue Hills Reservation Guide and Maps Friends of the Blue Hills PO Box 416 Milton, MA 02186 [email protected] Original edition produced by David Hodgdon and Thomas Palmer www.FriendsoftheBlueHills.org Friends of the Blue Hills 1 www.FriendsoftheBlueHills.org Introduction Whether you are a frequent sojourner in the Blue Hills, or a new glimpse of the unusual mating dance of the American woodcock. visitor, there is always something new to be explored in this inspiring You can spend your summers swimming at Houghton’s Pond, a landscape. Among the 7,000 plus acres there are opportunities to hike, kettle pond formation, gift of the glacial age, or pack your rod for some bike, ski, swim, climb and contemplate the simple beauty of nature. One fishing at Ponkapoag Pond. In the warmer months, try launching your can take a serpentine drive through the reservation, stopping to admire canoe on the Neponset River at Fowl Meadow. When the precipitation views along the way, or accept the challenge of hiking the Skyline Trail turns to snow, revisit Fowl Meadow for flat, easy cross-country skiing from beginning to end. or, alternatively, speed down the slopes at the Blue Hill Ski Area. For adventurous souls, there’s the challenge of biking Great Blue Hill or rock climbing on the vertical walls at Quincy Quarries in the northernmost part of the park. Those seeking a workout can hike the Skyline Trail from Quincy to Canton, a hike offering much elevation change and wonderful views. Even if you don’t consider yourself a serious hiker, you’ll still find easy rambles on trails that take you around Houghton’s Pond. -
BIRD OBSERVER 176 Vol. 27, No. 4, 1999 BIRDING the BLACKSTONE VALLEY: UXBRH)GE- Northbrroge, MASSACHUSETTS
BIRD OBSERVER 176 Vol. 27, No. 4, 1999 BIRDING THE BLACKSTONE VALLEY: UXBRH)GE- NORTHBRroGE, MASSACHUSETTS by Richard W. Hildreth and Strickland Wheelock The Blackstone River begins near Worcester, Massachusetts, flows south along a fairly straight course and down quite a steep gradient, and empties into the sea near Providence, Rhode Island. In the vicinity of Uxbridge and Northbridge, in southern Worcester County, Massachusetts, two major tributaries join the Blackstone: the West River and the Mumford River. In this “tri-river” area, the coincidence of an interesting variety of habitats, an abundance of easily accessible public land, and an impressive history of birding activity combine to produce a destination for excellent inland birding at all seasons. Besides being a productive birding destination, the region features historical sites associated with the Blackstone Canal, which operated from 1828 through 1847, as well as with other activities of the early days of the industrial revolution. The area also offers excellent opportunities for recreational activities such as hiking, biking, and canoeing. The area around Rice City Pond features some outstanding scenic views; this is an especially beautiful place to visit during the autumn foliage season. The Uxbridge area is the destination for annual spring and fall field trips by the Forbush Bird Club. This area is also the heart of the Uxbridge Christmas Bird Count, which has been conducted continuously for 16 years, during which 118 species have been found. One of us (Strickland Wheelock) has birded the area since childhood, amassing many observations and records; in conjunction with others, he has operated a bird-banding station in the area since 1988, netting, over the years, roughly 9500 birds representing about 105 species. -
History's Insights Into Martha's Vineyard — Today and Tomorrow
History’s Insights into Martha’s Vineyard — The 1850 Map by Today and Tomorrow Henry Laurens Whiting Developing the Map of Vineyard Lands and Waters o develop this new version of Whiting’s map we extracted the Vineyard from a larger U.S. Coastal The greatest historical and Survey chart—From Muskeget Channel to Buzzard’s Bay and Entrance to Vineyard Sound. The lands were surveyed by Whiting’s crew from 1844 to 1852 and surrounding waters from 1845 to ecological treasure lies in 1857. A worn original of the beautifully engraved chart is archived in the Martha’s Vineyard Museum but for a features seldom recorded: fence year we searched fruitlessly for a pristine chart to scan. A chance visit to naturalist Nancy Weaver and mariner Dave Dandridge revealed a nearly flawless original hanging in their home on Lagoon Pond. lines (stone walls and wooden The map was scanned at Harvard’s Widener Library at a resolution of 1000 dots per inch and enlarged to rails), natural land cover (forests, display the fine detail. We inserted original elements from the larger chart: attribution to Superintendent Bache; other woodlands, swamps, and distance scale; notes on survey dates, buoys, coastal dangers, and abbreviations; No Man’s Land; a locational inset map; and views of West Chop Lighthouse and Entrance to Vineyard Sound. We also added Whiting’s fresh and saltwater marshes), signature from his surveyor’s log and a legend. and remarkably, farm details Careful study reveals the map’s stunning detail: bathymetry in feet where shallow and fathoms elsewhere; the composition of the sea-bottom (mud, sand, etc.); the speed of tidal currents; and major shoals. -
Archeological Investigations of Minute Man National Historical Park
Archeological Investigations of Minute Man National Historical Park Volume II: An Estimation Approach to Prehistoric Sites Duncan Ritchie Marsha K. King Christy Vogt Patricia Fragola The Public Archaeology Laboratory, Inc. 387 Lonsdale Avenue Pawtucket, RI 02860 Contract No. CX1600-9-0021 Cultural Resources Management Study No. 23 Division of Cultural Resources Management North Atlantic Regional Office National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Boston, Massachusetts 1990 Table of Contents Page List of Figures vii List of Tables xi Acknowledgments xiii Management Summary xv Chapter 1 Introduction Overview: Problem Orientation 5 Environmental Settings 6 Geomorphology and Geology 6 Drainage Patterns 9 Past Environmental Settings 13 Present Conditions in the Project Area 17 Prehistoric Land Use and Settlement: General Overview 19 Historic,al-Period Land Use: General Overview 33 Concord 33 Lincoln 40 Lexington 41 Summary of Historical Agricultural Land Use 41 Chapter 2 Research Design and Strategies 49 Theoretical Orientation and Research Questions 49 Background Research, Archeological Sensitivity Stratification, and the Estimation Approach 52 Background Research 52 Stratification Scheme 56 Estimation Approach 57 Expected Results of the Archeological Survey 59 Field Methodology and Sampling Strategy 59 Laboratory and Analytical Methods 64 Prehistoric Cultural Material 65 Historical-Period Cultural Material 66 Chapter 3 Results 73 Background Research: Archeological Sensitivity Stratification 73 Existing -
West River Stream Team Shoreline Survey Report & Action Plan
%ODFNVWRQH5LYHU:DWHUVKHG$VVRFLDWLRQ :HVW5LYHU6WUHDP7HDP 6KRUHOLQH6XUYH\5HSRUW $FWLRQ3ODQ June 30, 2007 Thanks to: Commonwealth of Massachusetts Riverways Adopt-A-Stream Program and UNIBANK for their assistance in funding this project. Special thanks go out to our valued Stream Team members without whom this project would not be possible; West River area residents, businesses, and landowners for their cooperation; the Blackstone River and Canal Heritage State Park at River Bend Farm; and the Town of Uxbridge, especially the Uxbridge Conservation Commission. Preface The West River Stream Team members Erin, Steve, Jeremy, and Jack Bennett John and Elaine Czebotar William Dausey Barbara Johnson Mike, Tom, and Phil McMullin Gwyn Mills Joel Morgenstern Joan Newton Scot, Marie, and Andrea Pendleton Katherine Smith Charley Sweet James Plasse Michael Pouliot Michelle Walsh Commonwealth of Massachusetts Riverways Adopt-a-Stream Advisor Gabrielle Stebbins, Adopt-A-Stream Program Coordinator Blackstone River Watershed Association Project Coordinator Michelle Walsh, Environmental Outreach Coordinator Project Coordination Michelle Walsh, Environmental Outreach Coordinator for the Blackstone River Watershed Association (BRWA) advertised for volunteers in various media throughout the Blackstone Valley area including but not limited to press releases in local newspapers, announcements on local cable channels, letters to environmental organizations, high schools, Boy Scout troops and town officials, flyers and e-mails to various environmental organizations. A shoreline survey training session was scheduled at River Bend Farm in Uxbridge, MA on May 14, 2007. Approximately forty volunteers attended the meeting. At this meeting, volunteers were instructed on how to conduct a shoreline survey and were given survey sheets. After the meeting, the West River was sectioned into 9 reaches; volunteers were organized in teams and selected a section of the River to survey. -
Harvard Forest, Harvard University Petersham, Massachusetts By
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Harvard Forest, Harvard University Petersham, Massachusetts by David Foster, David Kittredge, Brian Donahue, Glenn Motzkin, David Orwig, Aaron Ellison, Brian Hall, Betsy Colburn and Anthony D’Amato A group of nine ecologists and historians affiliated with the Harvard Forest recently published a report on the status and future of forestlands in Massachusetts. Based on their assessment of the changing landscape, they developed a vision to protect the Commonwealth’s forests and the important economic, recreation, habitat and ecosystem services they provide. What follows is a summary of their report, “Wildlands and Woodlands: A Vision for the Forests of Massachusetts”. Massachusetts offers an unusual and urgent opportunity for forest conservation. Following widespread agricultural decline in the 19th century, the landscape reforested naturally and currently supports a wide expanse of maturing forest. Despite its large population, the state has more natural vegetation today than at nearly any time in the last three centuries. With its extensive forests supporting ecosystem processes, thriving wildlife populations, and critical environmental services for society, there is a great need to protect this landscape for the future. However, this historic window of opportunity is closing as forests face relentless development pressure. After decades of forest protection by state agencies and private organizations, patterns of land conservation and forest management are still inadequate to meet future societal and environmental needs. Large areas of protected forestland are uncommon, conserved forests are largely disconnected, important natural and cultural resources (including many plant and animal species) are vulnerable to loss, logging is often poorly planned and managed, and old-growth forests and reserves isolated from human impact are rare. -
Town of Upton Open Space and Recreation Plan
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ MAY 2011 TOWN OF UPTON D OPEN SPACE AND RECREATION PLAN a f North t Prepared by: Upton Open Space Committee (A Subcommittee of the Upton Conservation Commission) ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Town of Upton D OPEN SPACE rAND RECREATION PLAN a f t May 2011 Prepared by: The Upton Open Space Committee (A Subcommittee of the Upton Conservation Commission) Town of Upton Draft Open Space and Recreation Plan – May 2011 __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ DEDICATION The members of the Open Space Committee wish to dedicate this Plan to the memory of our late fellow member, Francis Walleston who graciously served on the Milford and Upton Conservation Commissions for many years. __________________________________________________________________ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Upton Open Space Committee Members Tom Dodd Scott Heim Rick Holmes Mike Penko Marcella Stasa Bill Taylor Assistance was provided by: Stephen Wallace (Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission) Peter Flinker and Hillary King (Dodson Associates) Dave Adams (Chair, Upton Recreation Commission) Chris Scott (Chair, Upton Conservation Commission) Ken Picard (as a Member of the Upton Planning Board) Upton Board of Selectmen. Trish Settles (Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission) __________________________________________________________________ -
The Ecosystems Center Report 2005 the MBL Founded the Ecosystems Center As a Year-Round Research Program in 1975
The Ecosystems Center Report 2005 The MBL founded the Ecosystems Center as a year-round research program in 1975. The center’s mission is to investigate the structure and functioning of ecological systems, predict their response to changing environmental conditions, apply the resulting knowledge to the preservation and management of natural resources, and educate both future scientists and concerned citizens. In Brazil, scientists investigate how the clearing of tropical forests in the western Amazon changes greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide released into the atmosphere. What will the effect be on global climate? How will change in temperature and atmospheric gas concentrations affect the productivity of forests? What effect does the clearing of forest for pasture have on tropical streams ecosystems? In Boston Harbor, researchers measure the transfer of nitrogen from the sediments to the water column. How long will it take the harbor to recover from decades of sewage addition? In the Arctic rivers of Eurasia, center scientists have conducted research that Ecosystems Center shows increased freshwater discharge to researchers add low the Arctic Ocean. If ocean circulation is levels of fertilizer to the incoming tide in creeks in The Ecosystems Center operates as a affected, how might the climate in western the Plum Island Estuary in collegial association of scientists under Europe and eastern North America change? northern Massachusetts. the leadership of John Hobbie and Jerry They are examining the response of the Melillo. Center scientists work together On Martha’s Vineyard, researchers surrounding salt marsh on projects, as well as with investigators restore coastal sandplain ecosystems with to increased levels of nutrients caused by from other MBL centers and other either controlled burning or mechanical land-use change. -
MDPH Beaches Annual Report 2008
Marine and Freshwater Beach Testing in Massachusetts Annual Report: 2008 Season Massachusetts Department of Public Health Bureau of Environmental Health Environmental Toxicology Program http://www.mass.gov/dph/topics/beaches.htm July 2009 PART ONE: THE MDPH/BEH BEACHES PROJECT 3 I. Overview ......................................................................................................5 II. Background ..................................................................................................6 A. Beach Water Quality & Health: the need for testing......................................................... 6 B. Establishment of the MDPH/BEHP Beaches Project ....................................................... 6 III. Beach Water Quality Monitoring...................................................................8 A. Sample collection..............................................................................................................8 B. Sample analysis................................................................................................................9 1. The MDPH contract laboratory program ...................................................................... 9 2. The use of indicators .................................................................................................... 9 3. Enterococci................................................................................................................... 10 4. E. coli........................................................................................................................... -
V. Insights from Time and the Land
Insights from a Natural and Cultural Landscape V. Insights from Time and the Land Pre-History Section Ecology and conservation lessons • Template for spatial variation - gradual boundaries driven by landscape variation - soils, moisture; significant island-wide variation. • Natural processes dominate; change is slow with few notable exceptions • Vegetation structure and species missing from present. Old growth - pine, hardwoods, and mixed forest. Forest dynamics structure - old trees, CWD, damaged trees, uproots. More beech, beetlebung and hickory; very little open land or successional habitat. • People with an abundance of natural resources; highly adaptable. Accommodate growth and humans; preserve, sustain nature intact. Real distinction: passive vs active management; wildland vs woodland. All is cultural but humans can make real difference in decisions. Viable alternative is to allow natural processes to shape and reassert themselves. E.g., cord wood and timber versus old-growth; salvage or no; fire versus sheep versus succession; coastal pond - natural breach vs excavator. Topics Inertia - what happens today is very dependent on the past, may be contingent on our expectation for the future. What we do, what natural forces operate on, are conditions handed to us from history; but the entire system is in motion-erosion of features created in the past; plants and animals recovering from historical changes. Even if we do nothing much will change. Without future changes in the system - i.e. environmental change. If change occurs; inertia will condition the response - e.g. coastal erosion, shift in species. To keep things the way they are - is impossible - but even to approximate, requires huge effort. World without us, 19th C New England. -
The Importance of Land-Use Legacies to Ecology and Conservation
Articles The Importance of Land-Use Legacies to Ecology and Conservation DAVID FOSTER, FREDERICK SWANSON, JOHN ABER, INGRID BURKE, NICHOLAS BROKAW, DAVID TILMAN, AND ALAN KNAPP Recognition of the importance of land-use history and its legacies in most ecological systems has been a major factor driving the recent focus on human activity as a legitimate and essential subject of environmental science. Ecologists, conservationists, and natural resource policymakers now recognize that the legacies of land-use activities continue to influence ecosystem structure and function for decades or centuries—or even longer— after those activities have ceased. Consequently, recognition of these historical legacies adds explanatory power to our understanding of modern conditions at scales from organisms to the globe and reduces missteps in anticipating or managing for future conditions. As a result, environmental history emerges as an integral part of ecological science and conservation planning. By considering diverse ecological phenomena, ranging from biodiversity and biogeochemical cycles to ecosystem resilience to anthropogenic stress, and by examining terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in tem- perate to tropical biomes, this article demonstrates the ubiquity and importance of land-use legacies to environmental science and management. Keywords: land use, disturbance, conservation, ecosystem process, natural resource management n the mid-1980s two groups met independently, at natural resource management, have come to recognize that Ithe tropical Luquillo Experimental Forest in Puerto Rico and site history is embedded in the structure and function of all at the temperate Harvard Forest in New England, to draft pro- ecosystems, that environmental history is an integral part of posals for a competition to qualify for the National Science ecological science, and that historical perspectives inform Foundation’s (NSF) Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) policy development and the management of systems ranging program. -
Integrated Studies of the Drivers, Dynamics and Consequences of Landscape Change in New England
INTEGRATED STUDIES OF THE DRIVERS, DYNAMICS AND CONSEQUENCES OF LANDSCAPE CHANGE IN NEW ENGLAND HARVARD FOREST LTER-IV 2006 - 2012 David R. Foster, Principal Investigator Harvard Forest, Harvard University Co-Investigators Emery R. Boose Elizabeth A. Colburn Aaron M. Ellison Julian L. Hadley Glenn Motzkin John F. O'Keefe Harvard Forest, Harvard University David A. Orwig W. Wyatt Oswald Julie Pallant Kristina A. Stinson J. William Munger Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University Steven C. Wofsy Earth and Planetary Science, Harvard University Kathleen Donohue Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University Paul R. Moorcroft Jerry M. Melillo Marine Biological Laboratory Paul A. Steudler Elizabeth S. Chilton University of Massachusetts David A. Kittredge, Jr. Eric A. Davidson Woods Hole Research Center Serita D. Frey Erik A. Hobbie University of New Hampshire Scott V. Ollinger Brian Donahue Brandeis University Knute J. Nadelhoffer University of Michigan Harvard Forest LTER IV – Project Summary The Harvard Forest (HFR) LTER is an integrated program investigating forest response to natural and human disturbance and environmental change over broad spatial and temporal scales. Involving >25 researchers, 150 undergraduate and graduate students, and a dozen institutions, HFR LTER embraces the biological, physical, and social sciences to address fundamental and applied questions for dynamic ecosystems. Our work on the ecological effects of the primary drivers of forest change in New England (Human Impacts, Natural Disturbances,