The First Hike of the Season

Last Sunday afternoon we finally had the set of favorable circumstances I had been hoping for since the beginning of March. The weather was fair, everyone was healthy and we had no plans for our afternoon. We packed the expedition bag with binoculars and guidebook, filled our water bottles, put on our boots and headed for the woods.
Our destination was Wampatuck State Park, in the nearby town of Hingham. Our objective was to scout for likely southern bog lemming habitat that Maura and I might revisit later on the Great Lemming Hunt. We didn’t find any place that seemed very promising, though there were a few spots we might visit again.

Despite not finding lemmings we had a wonderful hike and saw plenty of wildlife considering that Wampatuck is heavily traveled and hardly a pristine wilderness. From World War I until after World War II it was part of an ammunition depot where the Navy stored ammunition for large guns and the park is crisscrossed with roads from that time, some crumbling, some well maintained and popular with bicyclists. Between the roads are footpaths and bridle paths that cross the hummocky terrain. Most of the park land is gently rolling hills with swampy valleys between. In places there are open ponds. Everything is covered with brushy, second growth forest and there are occasional old buildings, stone walls and rusting chainlink fences.

The forest attracts many animals as well as people. Even in the early spring there are animals to be seen and heard. Along one sunny stretch of bridle path we spotted a pair of brown and yellow morning cloak butterflies. Further along on our hike we encountered a vernal pool filled with wood frogs. They could barely be seen in the shallow water through our binoculars but they could be clearly heard. They sounded more like a flock of ducks than a pond full of frogs. As we climbed up a bank to get closer to the pool of frogs we startled a barred owl and spotted it as it flew to a perch in a tree a bit further away from the annoying people. We weren’t sure what we’d seen, only that it was a large reddish-brown bird flying away but when it called “who-cooks-for-you” we knew what it was and we spotted it through our binoculars watching us from its perch.

We walked perhaps two miles on our expedition, hiking at an easy pace with many stops. I could have happily kept going, and I think Jennifer felt the same but Maura wasn't in the mood for a long hike so we headed for home. On another day we'll revisit the most likely spots to look for evidence of lemmings. This may be a year of frequent hikes. Everyone in the family enjoys them and hiking in local woodlands is an inexpensive pastime.