Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge U.S

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Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Physical Address: Still River Depot Road Harvard, MA 01451 Oxbow Mailing Address: 73 Weir Hill Road National Wildlife Sudbury, MA 01776 978/443 4661 978/443 2898 Fax Refuge http://www.fws.gov/refuge/oxbow/

Federal Relay Service for the deaf and hard-of-hearing Recreation and 1 800/877 8339 Trail Guide U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service 1 800/344 WILD http://www.fws.gov/

September 2015

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printed on recycled paper with vegetable based inks Welcome The Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge Refuge lands are closed to bicycles and (NWR) is one of more than 560 motorized vehicles. Dogs and horses refuges in the National Wildlife are not allowed. There are no picnic Refuge System administered by the areas or campsites on the refuge. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The system is the only network of lands Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge This goose, and waters in the world specifically provides habitat for many mammals, designed by J.N. managed for the protection of wildlife birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Ding Darling, and habitat. Resident mammals include predators has become the such as river otter, bobcat, red fox, symbol of the Oxbow NWR is one of eight refuges and fisher, as well as deer, squirrels National Wildlife within the Eastern Massachusetts and rabbits. Because predators are Refuge System. NWR Complex, which is secretive, they are seldom seen, headquartered out of Great Meadows even by regular visitors. Fortunately NWR and located at 73 Weir Hill Road, for human wildlife observers, birds Sudbury, Massachusetts, 01776. For are more visible. One mammal, the more information about Oxbow NWR, beaver, makes its presence obvious visit the Weir Hill office weekdays from through large stick lodges and stumps 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, contact the Refuge of gnawed-down trees. Manager at 978/443 4661, go on-line to http://www.fws.gov/refuge/oxbow, The home for all these creatures is or visit the Friends of Oxbow NWR at created by the Nashua River and www.friendsoftheoxbownwr.org. adjacent wetlands, and furnished There is also an Eastern MA NWR by the vegetation of the swamp and Complex visitor center located at forest. You are welcome to walk the 680 Hudson Road, Sudbury, MA refuge trail, but remember that and is open Friday-Sunday 10:00 here human beings are visitors in am to 4:00 pm. the home of other creatures. Both Red fox flowers and animals must be left The refuge is open from sunrise where they are found. Please follow to sunset. Wildlife-dependent the posted regulations and, through recreation opportunities, including your consideration, help care for this wildlife observation, photography, precious place. interpretation, and environmental education, are permitted on The trail loop covers 1.9 designated trails shown on this map. miles and takes about Fishing and hunting are allowed Great blue heron an hour. On this walk subject to refuge regulations, you can expect to see State and Federal laws and permit numerous views of the restrictions. The most intense hunt Nashua River, forest and period is during the shotgun deer wetland habitats, a beaver season in the fall. Most other times, pond, and beaver stumps hunt pressure is generally light. and lodges. Bird life varies Please refer to the kiosk or the refuge with the seasons, as do website for more information about wildflowers. hunt seasons. Fishing is allowed on the Nashua River. Kayak and canoe access is allowed at the canoe launch on the entrance road just before the

refuge parking area. ©June Henshaw The terrain is flat except for one apple tree in front of you indicates short section. Shoes, socks, and long past agriculture on this site. The field pants will help protect you from has received periodic mowing, which insects and poison ivy found on the otherwise would return to forest. The trail in late spring and throughout community of plants and animals that the summer. In these seasons insects live in the field increases the variety can be plentiful and precautions will of wildlife at Oxbow NWR and make your walk more enjoyable. adds to the biodiversity of eastern Although this trail is not accessible Massachusetts. to wheelchairs, nearby refuges have trails that are. Natural From this high bank you see the Levee 3 Nashua River flowing toward you This guide follows the Riverside on its way north to the Merrimack Buttonbush Trail, Turnpike Trail and parts River, which carries its waters to the of Tank Road, beginning at the Atlantic Ocean. information kiosk beside Tank Road. About 30 yards from the gate, the You might notice that the land Silky dogwood trail turns left onto Riverside Trail immediately adjacent to the river is and proceeds along the right bank higher at many points than the land of the river for 0.8 miles. Stay near a few feet farther from the water. the river and pass by the short When the Nashua River floods, water connectors leading back to Tank spills beyond the banks and is slowed Road. Turning away from the river, by friction with the ground. Because the trail follows a causeway called slow-moving water cannot carry Turnpike Trail (a raised roadbed that as much soil as fast-moving water, crosses wetlands) for 0.7 miles. It particles settle out. When the flood then climbs back to Tank Road and subsides, it leaves the river's natural returns to its starting point after levee a bit higher than it was before. another 0.4 miles. During wet periods the trail is temporarily flooded. Riparian The riverside woods, or riparian Forest 4 habitat, receive an ample supply of Nashua The Nashua River is a 56 mile water with nutritious silt, offering River 1 long tributary of the Merrimack an excellent situation for plants that River, which it joins at Nashua, are adapted to periodic flooding. New Hampshire. At one time Shagbark hickory is one of the trees the Nashua River was seriously most easily recognized by its shaggy polluted, but thanks to the efforts of bark. A yellow dye is made from communities, industries along the the inner bark of this tree. Its nuts river, the Massachusetts Department contribute to the forest food supply. of Environmental Protection, and Shagbark hickory leadership of the Nashua River There are often signs of beaver Watershed Association, water quality activity along the trail. Beavers do has improved. not always build stick lodges. In rivers and lakes they may live in Reading the You stand between a field and the tunnels dug into the bank. Landscape 2 riverbank. What forces have shaped what you see? The river has played a role and the effects of human management are also visible. The old American woodcock Impassable at 6 high water

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R ive 9 rs ide Tr ail 10 11 2 Oxbow d a o National Wildlife Refuge Na R sh ank ua T Harvard, Massachusetts R 12 i v e r Interpretive Trail Legend

Trail 1 12 1 Trail Stations NORTH Start Interpretive Trail one tenth mile Parking Canoe Launch General Parking Restroom Marsh Still River Depot Road Water Canoe Launch Parking Slough The bay across the river is called a Turnpike When this part of Massachusetts was 5 slough (pronounced slew). It is the Trail 8 first settled by the colonists, river footprint of an earlier course of the meadows had critical importance. river. Over the centuries the Nashua The thin-soiled, forested hillsides had River has twisted and turned in its little agricultural value in comparison valley. Like all streams and rivers, it with fertile, well-watered meadows. scours the outside of bends while the Farmers depended on hay as much slower-moving water leaves deposits as we do on petroleum. Causeways on the inner curves. This activity like this one were built by farmers creates the loops called oxbows to carry hay out of the low-lying wet that give their name to the refuge. meadows. The roadbed was improved Eventually the current cuts across Elderberry over the years. the oxbow's neck and the abandoned channel becomes an eyebrow-shaped Glacial To the side of the road cut you see pond. Terrace 9 steep banks of sandy soil that fringe the marsh at many points. These Bridge On both sides of the river’s edge you banks formed in the final phase of Abutment 6 can see mounded earth that is all that the most recent ice age, as the glacier is left of the abutments of a wooden gradually melted. Sand and pebbles bridge that crossed the Nashua River. trapped in the glacier accumulated These are remnants of the Union in steep banks where melt-water Turnpike built in 1805 that ran from flowed alongside the huge tongue of Harvard to Leominster. The Turnpike ice occupying the bottom of the valley. Trail is part of this historic turnpike. Many New England river valleys have such formations which are Beaver Among the many animals that spend termed kame terraces. As the trail Lodge 7 time at Oxbow NWR, beavers are the climbs it affords a view of the marsh best at advertising their presence. and swamp that make the Oxbow The stumps of trees they cut down, NWR unique wildlife habitat. their dams, and their large stick lodges indicate the power beavers Tank Road The refuge itself was part of Fort have to modify habitat. Beaver ponds 10 Devens until 1974, when it was create openings in the forest that turned over to the U.S. Fish and increase the variety of plants and Wildlife Service. The U.S. Army still animals. maintains an active presence on their adjacent property. You may hear In the summer beavers eat aquatic target practice while visiting Oxbow vegetation. The rest of the year they NWR. eat the bark of trees. An adult beaver cuts an average of one tree every two days. Belted Kingfisher

Beaver Beaver Do you see the lodge in the middle of Management 12 this pond? As a result of deforestation and unregulated hunting and trapping from the 1700’s through the early 1900’s, beaver numbers and their habitat were significantly reduced in eastern Massachusetts and were absent or rare until the last half of the twentieth century. Abandoned farms and reforestation during the 1900’s led to the re- establishment of beaver populations. Although they reproduce rather slowly compared to other rodents,

©Cindie Brunner their population has steadily increased and the beaver is now a common mammal in Massachusetts. White pine Sometimes the beaver's industrious ways bring it into conflict with human plans. The sound of flowing water relaxes us, but it makes beavers want to build a dam. Here they plugged the culvert that keeps the stream from washing over the road. To save the road without harming the beavers, a "beaver deceiver" was Turnpike Here at the highest point of the trail installed, allowing water to drain Trail 11 you pass through a stand of white from the pond without making much pine trees. When left to its natural noise. Hopefully, the beaver’s natural cycles, the New England forest tendency to stop flowing water will be produces enormous white pines. At averted. 200 years of age, white pines are far taller than any of our other trees, reaching 150 feet. White pines felled by the colonists were sometimes over 400 years old and 200 feet tall. Prized for the masts of sailing ships and other naval uses, the great pines were taken before less magnificent trees. Beaver lodge Thank you for visiting the Oxbow refuge today. We hope you enjoyed all the wonders of the natural world here and come back soon!

This trail guide was primarily written Dragonfly by Rona Balco and Ron McAdow of the Friends of Oxbow NWR. Funding to print the brochure was also provided by the Friends of the Oxbow NWR.