As you enter the trail, you begin to walk along an ecotone – a zone where two habitats meet. At this spot, the forest meets the field. The boundary is marked by the presence of both trees, such as Big-Toothed Aspen and Red Oak, and plants like Common Mullein, Goldenrod, and Smooth Sumac. Many animals find food in this area: squirrels and deer eat acorns from the oak, while birds eat the berries on the sumac.

At this stop you can see the stream. Common Yellowthroats bathe in it in the springtime. Despite its bright yellow throat and chest, this songbird is easier to hear than see; listen for its characteristic “wich-i-ty, wich-i-ty, wich-i-ty”. Other birds can also be heard around the stream in the spring. Listen for the “birdie, birdie, birdie” whistle of the Northern Cardinal and for the Black-capped Chickadee saying its name: “chickadee-dee-dee”.

Look to your right and you will see a swamp. Water has gathered in a depression formed by the last glacier and created this forested wetland. The swamp is home to many organisms ranging from aquatic insects to birds. As you stand by the swamp in the springtime, you can hear the mating calls of various frogs and toads. The Wood Frogs have a quacking call, the Spring Peepers a piercing call, and the American Toads a trilling call. Can you hear any of the three?

On the other side of the gate you will see an open field filled with Goldenrod, Joe-Pye weed, and Aspen. The field is mowed once every two years to prevent ecological succession, or change in the species structure. If the field underwent succession and became a forest, sparrows, mice, woodchucks, woodcocks, and other meadow-dwellers would lose their habitat.

A farmer built this stone wall as he cleared his fields and pastures for tilling. Walls made with large boulders encircled cattle and other livestock, while walls made with smaller rocks outlined the fields. These rocks and boulders are till, sediments deposited directly by the last glacier when it receded about 10,000 years ago.

Here you will find a Chinese Chestnut tree, distinct from the American Chestnut in that its leaves are oval-shaped, thick, and waxy (rather than long, thin, and papery) and its stem is hairy (rather than smooth and hairless). Around 1900, a fungus was carried over from Asia that caused the American Chestnut blight. The Chinese Chestnut has some immunity to this disease, and today scientists are working on a new hybridization between the American and Chinese Chestnut trees. The seed of the Chestnut is an important source of food for wildlife such as deer, squirrels, and turkeys, but to eat it they must first get through the prickly husk.

Welcome to the Pine Grove. If you look up in the trees, you can see a nesting box. That box was made for a Screech Owl, but is usually inhabited by a Red Squirrel instead. Is he or she home?

As you walk away from the Pine Grove, you may notice a lot of brush piles, blow-downs, and fallen logs. Audubon does not clear these so that they can decompose naturally and recycle their nutrients back into the soil. Fallen logs support life and provide new homes for many organisms. Isopods, carpenter ants, termites, centipedes, millipedes, and mushrooms, such as turkey tail, are all commonly found in and around these fallen logs. Along this part of the trail you may also spot middens or little piles of pinecone scales. Red Squirrels make these as they consume the seeds in the pinecones they stored for the winter.

Look down at the logs lining the trail. See those markings that seem to be carved into the wood? That is not an ancient inscription, but the work of a bark beetle. Bark beetles attack weakened trees and recently cut wood that still has its bark, and tunnel their way through creating these galleries.

Welcome to the pond, home to a variety of organisms from ducks to crayfish. In the summer you can see Painted Turtles, also known as Sun Turtles, basking on logs, and hear the calls of frogs. Green Frogs make a sound like the plucking of a banjo, while the Bullfrog makes a “drum, drum” sound. Later in the summer you may also see the Meadowhawk dragonflies doing their dance of love while in flight.

Here behind the stone wall is a wolf tree. Wolf trees were typically left by farmers at the border of a property or pasture to provide shade for the grazing cattle. They are frequently found along rock walls and have wide-spread crowns. Also in the stone wall is a big quartz rock. Quartz is one of the most common minerals on earth and can come in many varieties. Colorless quartz, like this specimen, is often referred to as rock crystal.