Herons, Manchaug Pond, and the Neighboring Rookery

A Heron on a dock on Manchaug Pond – archive photo Herons are a common sight on Manchaug Pond: fishing coves, standing on docks and shoreline boulders and flying low over the water to a quiet place.  To see where they are nesting, just take a car ride north and west of Manchaug Pond heading toward Oxford. Heron rookery located just outside Manchaug Pond watershed in Oxford, Massachusetts  As you head west on Central Turnpike you’ll enter Oxford, passing Douglas Pike and  Joe Jenny Road on the left. Keep looking to the left and you will see a large area of water and dead trees.  This wetlands was created by a number of years ago by beavers flooding the forest.  Those dead trees now bear the large stick nests of herons! A driveby reveals the adults standing tall in the nest with other adults flying east to and from area ponds and wetlands. Closeup of females in the nests. In addition to Manchaug Pond, herons are frequent visitors to Aldrich Mill Pond at the inlet of Manchaug, the bordering trout ponds on the Beaton Farm Property in Sutton as well as neighboring Stevens Pond downstream and Oxford’s Robinson Pond west …

TO DO LIST for Lovers of Manchaug Pond!

My Action Items – Today the lake is my priority! Preserve Beaton Farm – all 100+ acres of fields, forests, and shoreline! 1. TAKE A STAND!  Yes, I support MPF’s effort to preserve the shoreline, water, and watershed! VOTE in the poll on the sidebar at the right!  Comment here, and on Facebook as to what Manchaug Pond means to you! 2. MAKE A DONATION – Dig deep!  I CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE! Manchaug Pond NEEDS ME and MPF needs me with them and behind them! Love Manchaug Pond?  Be a part of the rescue!  Join the MPF to preserve the entire parcel, farmlands, forest, and the 875 ft of waterfront.   No donation is too small or too big.  Today send your check to MPF, P. O. Box 154, Manchaug, MA, USA  01526-0154 or use the Paypal button on the sidebar.   MPF needs to cover required closing costs: title, surveying and marking, wetlands delineation and flagging, legal fees, etc. 3. SPREAD THE WORD!  I’m going to tell everyone I know what is going on and ask them to help me save our lake! We can do this!

Sunday Telegram Tells Beaton Farm Story

Sunday, May 19, 2013 Group races to save Sutton landscape A robin takes flight from a fence post on land the Manchaug Pond Association wants to save from development. (T&G Staff/RICK CINCLAIR)The Manchaug Pond Foundation is racing to raise $1.32 million by July 16 to buy the Beaton Farm Property overlooking Manchaug Pond. (T&G Staff/RICK CINCLAIR) By Susan Spencer TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF susan.spencer@telegram.com Add a comment   Enlarge photo Enlarge photo SUTTON —  There is hardly a more classic rural New England landscape than in Sutton. Rolling hills unfold in a patchwork of fields and stone walls. Weathered barns stand against the wind. Orchards, dairy and horse farms dot knolls sloping to sparkling ponds. That view — and the town’s cultural heritage — is changing, as open space succumbs to development. Selectman Michael A. Chizy, who serves as board chairman, has lived in town almost 60 years. “Where cornfields used to be, now there’s houses,” he said. Another quintessential parcel, the 100-acre Beaton Farm Property that was once part of historic Waters Farm, overlooking Manchaug Pond, may be the next to be developed. The current owner, who has received property tax benefits for 73 acres on the site under the …

Today’s Cleanup Draws 21 Volunteers!

On this beautiful spring day, beginning with coffee, donuts and a bowl of fresh fruit, 21 volunteers joined forces at the state boat ramp on Torrey Road, Sutton today from 9:00AM to 2:00PM to fan out cleanning the roadsides, ramp and shoreline of Manchaug Pond. Coordinated by the Manchaug Pond Foundation, the cleanup included trash pick up on roadsides including Lackey Road, Manchaug Road from Central Turnpike to Torrey Road, Torrey Road to Holt Road in Sutton and then on to Oak Street in Douglas. A team with “heavy equipment” focused on the public boat ramp clearing branches from lawn areas, leaves and other debris from gutters, and trash from the property. Cooperating in the effort was the town of Sutton Highway Dept. who supplied a town truck for disposal of the trash. Volunteer hours will count toward our upcoming s. 319 Nonpoint Pollution Grant. A couple cars also pulled up asking for information on the MPF and how they could join our efforts!  As Sutton residents they loved the lake and enjoyed boating and one local family camps at a Manchaug Pond campground! If you would like to be on the mailing list – email ManchaugPondSecretary@gmail.com with your name, …

IN THE NEWS: Beaton Farm Property

Tuesday, May 14, 2013 Outdoors: Hoping someone can save this land from development by July Mark Blazis Outdoors Add a comment   Today’s column was supposed to be about great fishing — the first big surge of stripers, mackerel, squid, the Canal, Barnstable Harbor, huge flocks of terns feeding over bait, tired casting arms, local mayfly hatches, and shad runs. That news is temporarily on hold for a much more urgent matter. A Sutton wildlife treasure is on the precipice of development. It’s the bottom of the ninth for Beaton Farm. Without immediate intervention — i.e., $1.325 million — we’re going to lose it forever. July 16 is D-Day. Without someone coming to the rescue and having all formalities completed by that date, Holy Cross stands ready to take over the land — and build on it. In lieu of what could or should have been done long before now, we need a deus ex machina — a wealthy benefactor or a conservation rescue team from the DCR, MassWildlife, MassAudubon, the Nature Conservancy, a land trust or Trustees of Reservations — to again step in at the proverbial last minute, as some have done so many times in the past. …

Attention Sutton Voters: Manchaug Pond needs you!

Sutton voters! Manchaug Pond needs you to attend tonight’s town meeting, Monday, May 13th at 7:30 PM at the Early Learning Center.  Vote YES on the warrant article that splits the boat excise tax revenue between the two Sutton public lakes – Manchaug Pond and Lake Singletary. See you there and bring a friend! UPDATE: Passed unanimously!

Local Newspaper Headline: Beaton Property goes to Manchaug Pond Foundation…for now

Beaton Farm homestead overlooking Manchaug Pond. Yes, you read it right! The ball is in our court! We have the once in a lifetime opportunity to preserve up to 100 acres directly abutting Manchaug Pond! The Beaton Farm Property is the most significant parcel of property in our watershed, after the dam, to Manchaug Pond and the area. Check out the Millbury-Sutton Chronicle’s April 25th report of the public hearing: the developer’s proposal, testimony from the neighborhood,  the MPF, and the unanimous vote of the Sutton Board of Selectman to assign a right to purchase to the community. Beaton Property goes to Manchaug Pond Foundationn…for now  Millbury-Sutton Chronicle, April 25, 2013 Beaton property goes to Manchaug Pond Foundation…for now BY TOM REILLY The Board of Selectmen unanimously voted at their April 16 meeting to assign dozens of acres a right of first refusal to the Manchaug Pond Foundation (MPF).A public hearing under Massachusetts General Law 61A was held to discuss whether or not the town would act to purchase the Beaton property, located on Waters Road adjacent to Waters Farm, assign those rights to a qualified third party or else allow the land to be purchased by The College of …

Can you identify? Found in the Manchaug Pond watershed.

Take a guess! Do you know what these white blobs are? They’re in our watershed! This photo was sent in by a friend of Manchaug Pond from a walk last weekend. Our next post will take you there and give you all the details! UPDATE:Not frog eggs.  Not your neighbor’s golf balls.  But the egg mass of the SPOTTED SALAMANDER! This is an egg mass of the Spotted Salamander, Ambystoma maxulatum, taken in a vernal pool in the watershed of Manchaug Pond. The photographer reported seeing “about 80″ masses this year.  The spotted salamander is a very large amphibian (4.5-8” long) which is black in color with yellow spots. Adults spend their lives in forested areas within a half mile of a vernal pool, tunneling under logs or in the crevices of stone walls.  Feeding at night, they are seldom seen except on rainy early spring nights when migrating to vernal poos to breed.  The egg masses are firm in texture and may be attached to twigs or leaves in the vernal pool.  Laid in mid-March through May they will begin hatching from mid-May onward. The larvae, the stage between egg and adult, live in the water of the vernal …