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All Along The Marshland
by Mary Jasch
The Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge lies in the "Black Dirt" region that follows the Wallkill River through Sussex County, New Jersey, and Orange County, New York. It's the refuge system's 100th birthday this year, so I decided to take a walk with a friend. It was the Liberty Loop Trail, one of three at Wallkill, with its seemingly flat terrain that lured me one sunny afternoon.
The Liberty Loop is three miles on a raised path around a central marsh impoundment - all part of the Wallkill River floodplain. Long ago, the marsh was ditched and drained by Dutch farmers who wanted it dry in order to plant sod. "Let me find a grasshopper, so he can show me how the bass will come up to eat it"
Now, it is divided into impoundments as part of the Fish & Wildlife Service's "Liberty Marsh" reclamation project with Ducks Unlimited. Mechanisms were installed in the ditches to control the level of floodwater, allowing seed germination of wetland plants in spring, wetter in summer and fall for lush plant growth and great migrant waterfowl habitat in fall, then in winter, a dry spot for hawks and owls.
We start on a path mowed through grassland, sweetly-scented and almost head-high. The black dirt that the region is known for is visible, and the marsh meadows are covered in summer's thick growth of wildflowers-orange impatiens control the bank nearest us and across the ditch is a solid area of giant smartweed.
Suddenly two white Great Egrets fly up against a green background of trees and a distant mountainside. They sail around, then take off, returning later.
On the second leg, the tree-lined path appears to be an old farm road, probably left from the days when this land was sod farm. The place is a riot of color - yellow, orange and purple-sorrel, mullein, Queen Anne, impatiens, aster... The Appalachian Trail comes in from the woods on the right and joins us for a while. The path becomes a levee, with water on both sides and off to the right, the Wallkill River flows quietly.
A garter snakes slithers from under my half-raised foot, then it's just a few steps more to a skeleton of a long-tailed critter minus a head. Possum! Benches await the birder or the tired on each leg of the Loop, but we don't sit.
Each wildflower on the cross - wind leg steps forward to be noticed – goldenrod, the white bell-like blooms of bladder campion, catmint, pink and white water pepper and lady’s thumb everywhere, bright blue verbena, yellow cinquefoil, evening primrose, and a surprising stand of lavender colored wild bergamot with "question mark" butterflies on it.
All along the path are butterflies and dragonflies and more color – yellow clover, Deptford pinks, purple aster and another surprise – New York ironweed – and monarchs on milkweed.
The center wetlands are fields of tall pink polygonum. There are heron tracks on top of the scummy water that slides into the wetland via ditches.
At the next corner, my buddy spies bass in a spring-fed pond, once a farm pond used to irrigate the sod in the center where the impoundments are now. He says, "Let me find a grasshopper," so he can show me how the bass will come up to eat it. He goes off searching like he must have done when he was a kid. After ten minutes he catches one and tosses it into the pond. Nothing comes up and it eventually sinks, but we see the bass swim around.
Green darners, twelve-spot skimmers and flying grasshopppers zip around an old irrigation pump that remains among the Queen Anne's Lace.
The third leg is along a tree line and the Appalachian Trail goes off into the swampy woods on a boardwalk. Birds fly up from shrubby weeds near the wetland and accompany us back to the car.
** Park in a lot on Oil City Road, just inside Warwick, NY.
Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge
1547 Rt. 565, Vernon Valley, NJ
973-702-7266
wallkillriver.fws.gov
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published September 01, 2003
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