Great Barrington — One of the town’s ecological and recreational gems, the River Walk is open for the season. More than a pretty trail and peaceful retreat from the bustle of downtown, it is both window into and respite from the river’s industrial past, and its construction provides a model for riverfront restoration efforts. The public is invited to join a guided “Stroll along the Housatonic” on Saturday, May 4, from 1 to 3 p.m., with the Great Barrington Land Conservancy, who stewards this community trail. If you miss that, join Berkshire Bird Observatory Director Ben Nickley for Spring Bird Walks along the Riverfront Trail, at 5:30 p.m. on any Thursday in May.
“Right now there are some lovely spring ephemerals, and we’re starting to see our ferns unravel and unfurl,” says Christine Ward, president of the Great Barrington Land Conservancy (GBLC). The designated National Recreation Trail, whose origins can be traced to community-driven riverside cleanups almost 40 years ago, boasts nearly 200 species of native plants. The banks they sit on were originally brought in as fill to give the town more room, Ward explains. On this poor quality soil, GBLC “has worked for decades to introduce plants and support them so they can thrive there.”
Attendees of Saturday’s guided walk will see these native plants and trees in their spring finery, as well as learn about the history of the trail. The restoration work has evolved since the early days, when there was less awareness of the importance of native species. GBLC contracts with Greenagers to provide an internship program for maintenance of the trail, as well as a horticultural team. All of this, says Ward, has resulted in a “complete turnaround of the riverside habitat” in the area behind Dresser Avenue winding south to Bridge Street. A rain garden, for instance, in W.E.B. Du Bois Park cleanses stormwater runoff before it enters the river.
Saturday’s guided walk will for the first time continue south of Bridge Street to the Riverfront Trail, which heads south to Olympian Meadows. “That’s exciting for me,” Ward shares, “because River Walk is the earliest project of the Great Barrington Land Conservancy, and the Riverfront is one of our newest, but the ethics that we learned at River Walk were applied to our work at the Riverfront Trail.” GBLC never uses chemicals along the shores of the river, for instance. All control of invasive species, such as the Japanese knotweed now starting to emerge, is done mechanically. This work, especially on the Riverfront trail, is accomplished by volunteer effort.
“It’s a never-ending task, and we’re not completely successful,” says Ward. Disturbed soil on eroded riverbanks is “prime real estate for invasive species to thrive,” but volunteers make a difference; people can find information on River Walk’s or GBLC’s volunteer pages. Years of pulling garlic mustard in the Lake Mansfield forest, another of GBLC’s properties, has had excellent results, and some volunteer days are coming up for that.
Spring Bird Walks
Ben Nickley, who led bird walks along the Riverfront trail all winter long and is now offering free Spring Bird Walks, hates driving to “get birds.” He loves that the River Walk and Riverfront Trail are right in town, accessible and flat, and adjacent to the Co-op, a community meeting place for many. His walks meet in their parking lot and have often brought new people in. “People notice us, and wonder, ‘What’s going on here? Okay, I’ll take a walk,’ and then all of a sudden they’re into nature, maybe, and maybe before they weren’t.”
Nickley is the founder of Berkshire Bird Observatory (BBO), which operates a bird-banding station at Jug End Reservation. He will also be speaking about the importance of birds and conservation at the GBLC’s annual meeting, open to the public, along with Hoffman Bird Club President Chip Blake, at St. James Place on June 22.
Nickley loves “patch birding,” and the Riverfront Trail is “one of these patches that really has it all,” he explains. “It has water. That water has mud. Some coves hold ducks, and some oxbows and edges of the river have exposed mud where you can get shorebirds.”
“Migrants tend to use waterways to orient their flight, especially a north-south running river system, and riparian zones offer a continuous line of leafy veg that neotropical migrants love,” he says. “The bottomland forest along the river has some species that warblers really like, like hackberry that has high caterpillar loads that our migratory birds depend on to power their migration.”
The many different cover types include suburban lawn and shrubby old fields behind Searles Castle where those on the bird walks have seen harriers. There is a “great big open sky for raptors,” Nickley says. They see vultures and eagles flying over. “You can hear birds in mature forest across the river in East Mountain.”
Another disconnected spur of the trail that GBLC calls “Riverfront South” is “a wonderful resource for the folks that live in that area,” says Christine Ward. It goes north from Brookside Road for a short distance, near the senior and community housing.
Nickley wishes that, instead of dead-ending in the Great Barrington Fairgrounds, it connected to the rest of Riverfront Trail, picking up in the ball diamonds of Olympian Fields. “I’m a huge advocate for expanding this trail that is right in town that so many people use and enjoy,” Nickley declares enthusiastically. “The Fairgrounds is excellent habitat for so many birds. I see kestrels there because it’s overgrown and weedy with a lot of exposed perches. Raptors love it. I hope it stays wild. If the trail did connect, it would be so much longer and better for people who want to run. That’s just a beautiful way to walk.”
In addition to helping raise awareness of BBO and doing something for the community, Nickley views the Spring Bird Walks as a collaboration with GBLC. “I love that trail, and I want to promote the trail, and I want to advocate for the expansion of that trail because it’s a great resource for the entire community, and it’s right in Great Barrington.”
Register for GBLC’s May 4 stroll, which meets in front of Mason Library, or for Nickley’s Spring Bird Walks, meeting Thursday evenings at 5:30 at the Great Barrington Food Co-op.
