Marshlands Conservancy is a wonderful, quiet, undeveloped park, a refuge for nature and its human visitors. People generally look content when I see them there. Lacking in human-made “attractions,” other than a small visitor center and some educational programs (including a summer ecology camp for children), Marshlands is cleaner and quieter than many other area parks and, thankfully, lacks the abundant paving so common in many other Westchester County parks. It is part of the county parks system, yet does not require a county parks pass or the parking fee requisite at the system’s more popular attractions. It is a very good place for bird-watching. It is also said to be a great site for resolving conflicts. Perhaps it is the peacefulness of the place?
The main attraction is that the land has been protected and is publicly accessible, unlike the bulk of the waterfront on the Westchester shore of the Long Island Sound, much of which is devoted to private yacht clubs and large houses. Because individual properties are generally smaller in the southern part of the county, the mere fact that there are 150 undeveloped acres together is special. In the northern parts of the county, there are more tracts of protected land, saved from development through the efforts of private organizations. However noble those donations to land trusts may be, they often seem to speak of a desire to not just protect nature and open space but to prevent the unwashed masses from moving in.
At any rate, the variety in the landscape at Marshlands Conservancy is remarkable, full of contrasts of light and dark, water and woods. The forest opens up onto a sun-filled meadow. When walking along a path through the trees up to the meadow, I am always reminded of a time I was in France with my friend Heidi. Somewhere along our deliberately long route from Giverny to catch the train back to Paris, we happened to climb an incline and came out, entirely unexpectedly, onto a massive field of sunflowers. While there is no such surprise at the Marshlands meadow, other than the occasional deer sighting, that sense of wonder always comes back to me.
Similarly, I remember the feeling I had during my first visit to Marshlands when I came out through the forest and meadow to the rocky outcropping overlooking the salt marsh and mudflats: the pleasure of a previously unknown view.
The park also leads me to imagine the time before the arrival of the Europeans, who went on to develop, pave, and pollute the salt marsh along the Northeastern and Midatlantic coast. There are surely many open, accessible marshes left (I have seen them in South Carolina), but they must be in short supply in my part of the country, particularly in those spots from which you can see New York City. (How open and accessible the New Jersey Meadowlands are is open to debate.) A place that can transport one to one’s own past and much further back in time is indeed special.
There in the distance is the Throg’s Neck Bridge, which connects Bronx to Queens.
Earlier I had come across a pair of wild turkeys, the male exercising his vocal capacity and tail-display talents.
So many tiny crabs, each about an inch long, seem to have been stranded when the tide went out. What a way to go! These must be Asian shore crabs, an invasive species. If so, they are apparently not as invincible as reports suggest.
Perhaps I can allow the rest of my pictures to speak for themselves.
The Semi-Urban Explorer 