It’s been fun working here at Montauk State Park. I’m one of
three naturalists – the other two are Steve, who is here permanently, and
Azmyth, who is a seasonal like me. The position includes not only presenting
interpretive programs and providing visitor information, but also resource
management, like trail maintenance, invasive weed eradication, and working on
the unfinished part of the historic mill. Luckily, I prefer to do more
programming and Azmyth prefers to do more outdoor work, so she and I get along
pretty well! Steve does programs, and resource management, but also has to do a
lot of other administrative-type stuff, including driving out to help at the
new state park that got established earlier this summer, so he was glad to have
two of us helping to divide the labor. That also meant that I had to start
doing programs right away!
On July 1, after making sure the three of us would all be
in at the same time, Steve drove us around the park to several different areas
he wanted us to see. The first was to a spot where we could access the Pine
Ridge Trail where it crosses the road – much faster than doing the entire
two-mile loop! We walked a little way along the trail, then he led us off-trail
to where we could see the eagle nest that has been active every year for a long
time.
Can you spot it?
When the eagles first established the nest, they got scared
off by the noise and crowds of the opening day of Trout Season – particularly the
starting gun, which was right near the hillside they had chosen! Six years in a
row they came back to that nest, then got scared off on opening day and did not
brood any eggs. Steve decided to try acclimating them to the noise, and
discovered that banging on the bridge railing made a very similar sound to the
starting gun. He went out and banged randomly in the week leading up to opening
day, and that day when the gun went off, the eagles stayed! They have stuck
around ever since, and raised chicks almost every year.
These are the largest nests in the world, and the eagles usually come back to the same one and build on even more every year! They have to be big, because the babies don’t fly until they are adult-sized. What looks ridiculously big when it’s just a few fuzzy eaglets looks dangerously crowded by the time they’re ready to leave!
After we hiked back to the car, we drove over to the Montauk
Spring parking area and walked part of that trail, out to the spring. Montauk
Spring produces about 50 million gallons of water a day, and is the headwaters
of the Current River – upstream from where the spring flows in, it is Pigeon
Creek. The spring more than doubles the amount of water flowing downstream.
It used to be a much deeper hole – possibly over 200 feet, but there is no verified measurement, only tales. However, there was a massive flood in 1893, just after the entire area had been logged off, and so much sediment washed down from the hills that the entire valley was bubbling for a week. The spring got filled in with gravel and sand; people tried to dynamite it out, but it didn’t work. Now it is still a pool, but not nearly as deep, with a clean sandy bottom – if you look you can see the sand bubbling where the water is pushing up. There are more outlets now – places where the water that is backed up underground has found other places to relieve that pressure. But most of the water is still coming out of the original hole.
It’s incredibly clear, having filtered first through the rock and then the sand. It was so clear that I could spot the muskrat swimming underwater on the other side, and point it out as it started making a beeline for a certain spot on the bank, where it disappeared! Then we saw another one! I never did get a picture, but I’ve seen muskrats there several times since then, and those pictures will be up soon.
The other thing that I almost always see at the spring is water snakes lounging on the branches of the fallen tree out in the middle of the pool. Often there are several, each on their own branch!
Beautiful.
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