Hedgehogs at Sunnyside

Someone has been feeding what I assume are feral cats at the Sunnyside Boat Launch - there's a cat house and feeding station there. The problem with feeding dogs and cats outside is that wild animals such as raccoons, skunks, coyote, opposum, and even bobcat also eat the food. Populations of these species increase to unnaturally high levels and they lose their fear of humans, which increases the risk of bites.

A new threat is the expanding population of hedgehogs coming up the Housatonic River Valley (the photo is one at Sunnyside). Native to England, hedgehogs became pests in New Zealand after they were released to eat garden pests (although they look like a rodent, their diet actually consists mostly of insects, along with bird eggs and anything else they can scavenge - including pet food). Since their release in New Zealand, songbird populations have declined. Now they have appeared along the Housatonic River, where they apparently scavenge the shoreline.

Hedgehogs have quills, but these quills are not barbed and do not release into your skin like a porpupine. So we do not have that to worry about (up north dogs are forever getting a facefull of quills). In fact, hedgehogs are sometimes kept as pets, which may be how they were released into Connecticut.

Hedgehogs are not adapted to harsh winters, so they may not move much to the north, and a cold winter might even wipe out the entire population. Time will tell.

APRIL FOOLS!!!

What ATVs Can Do

Some people think of the ATV problem as one of simple "trespassing". On the contrary, ATVs and dirtbikes cause serious damage to parkland. Unchecked, the ruts grow deeper and deeper, like the ones here at Fountain Lake in Seymour, which were over 3 feet deep. Even if all ATV usage stopped here today, these unsightly ruts will be visible for hundreds of years. Sometimes the ruts from just a few passes can cause damage that lasts for decades.

Here's a video of ATVers in Oxford tresspassing on private property that has become a regional destination for ATVers, including some from Shelton who drive across the city using powerlines, church property, open space, and RR tracks to get there.

Stratford Point

Most people around here have been to Short Beach in Stratford at one time or another, but very few know that you can walk south along the shore for about a mile to the Stratford Point Lighthouse, built in 1881.


From Short Beach you can see the former Remington Gun Club at the point, the really big house sitting all by itself. The Gun Club was shut down due to lead contamination, and the owner Dupont was ordered to remediate the site, which it did. The land was then going to be transferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as an addition to the Stewart B. McKinney Wildlife Refuge, who was to turn the site into a public access and educational facility. However, the land transfer has stalled due to remaining contamination. The site is none-the-less being used as a scientific research facility as well as a local public access point, although it is not advertised as such.


When you get near the Gun Club, the shore will steepen and is covered by rip-rap. At that point, you have the option of walking along a mowed grassy path at the top of the slope, which is what most people do because it's a beautiful walk. You'll round the point and head straight to the lighthouse, which is occupied by a Coast Guard family and strictly off-limits (a fence surrounds the lighthouse complex). This spot is a wonderful location for a picnic.

The Point marks the tip of the Housatonic River Delta. Yes, we have a delta in Connecticut.


If you go, be sure to respect any signs or barricades that may be installed to protect the Plovers or ongoing scientific studies. An alternative access point is on Prospect Drive, just past Riverdale Lane, at a pull-off lined by boulders. Walk to the left of the chain-link fence and follow the heavily-used trail down to the water (this avoids the beach fee).




Here's a pair of Long-Tailed Ducks near the lighthouse. These are sea ducks that breed in the Arctic and can dive as much as 200 feet to find food such as snails.

Ghosts of Pleasure Beach

If you take a drive down Rt 113 Main Street in the Lordship area of in Stratford, passing Short Beach and the Sea Wall, and take a left onto Oak Bluff Ave., you come to the Long Beach parking lot. Start walking west along the narrow sandy peninsula, which feels more like an island. And walk. And walk. This is why they call it Long Beach. There are no facilities, but there are lots of shells - no one else seems to be picking them up. This time of year you may not see a single person. After 3/4 mile of beach walking, the island widens and you will start to see abandoned cottages. Stratford recently evicted the cottage owners, who were leasing the property from them. It's a ghost town.

Keep walking. When you reach the first radio tower, you've entered Pleasure Beach, Bridgeport, and the ghosts of a former amusement park. A bridge once connected downtown Bridgeport with the island, but it burned. There is no way to get here from Bridgeport, except by boat. Most of the rides and buildings are gone, but some remain, like the carosel shown above. The postcard below shows what the place looked like about 80 years ago.

This is a fascinating place. It looks like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service may buy the property for a wildlife refuge and would certainly remove the old structures. Until then, anyone can take a nice long walk down the beach. If you walk the entire route and back it's almost 3 miles.

Update 3/7/2008: Last night 3 of the cottages burned down, and the two men who called 911 after seeing smoke were given $94 trespassing tickets for walking down the beach, according to the CT Post. I called up the Stratford Recreation Department and was assured that the public is welcome to walk down the beach - just stay away from the 45 cottages - they are strictly off limits. But you can walk past the cottages, staying down by the water. When you get to the Bridgeport side, and Pleasure Beach, I saw no signs prohibiting entry to the park.

Update 3/16/2008: How quickly things change! Stratford has officially closed all of Long Beach past the parking lot and there are no trespassing signs up. However, under state law, the public is guarenteed access to the beach below the mean high tide line. I was surprised to learn this law originates from Roman times. Apparently there is a very long tradition of shoreline property owners trying to keep everyone away, so that laws were passed to allow the public to fish, hunt, gather shellfish and, more recently, just recreate along the shore. This time it's the City of Stratford trying to deny public access, ostensibly worried about someone damaging the abandoned cottages that need to be demolished (I'm not exactly sure why that is such a catastrophe if they're going to remove them anyway, but what do I know?)

3/26/2008: Per the CT Post this morning, someone stole the 'no trespassing' signs, and due to lots of angry residents calling the Mayor, the new signs will say 'no trespassing near the cottages'. How surprising that people might get angry about a mile of beach being closed.

Migration of the Frogs

Here comes spring! The annual amphibian migration to their breeding pools has commenced. Woodfrogs and Spotted Salamanders are the easiest to spot. They often migrate en mass on the first few warm rainy nights of the season, and can be found crossing roads near special vernal pools.

I spotted this cute little woodfrog on the upper end of Wesley Drive and Scotch Pine in Huntington Woods, a location where I've previously seen dozens of frogs and salamanders on the pavement at once. Woodfrogs do not live in water - they live in the forest, and only return to water to breed. They will only breed in "vernal pools" - tiny ponds that have no fish and which tend to dry up in the summer. There is a substantial vernal pool on the west side of Wesley Drive, fortunately saved from development and now classified as open space.

One spot on Buddington Road, east of Grace Lane, has a MAJOR amphibian crossing. When conditions are right, literally hundreds of frogs and salamanders will be hopping and waddling across the street. The cars zoom by, crunching large numbers of them. The next day, the birds have a feast.

Woodfrog breeding ponds can be located in the spring by the sound of quacking where there should be no ducks, like in some thick but wet brush. The sound will stop as soon as you approach. That is the mating song of the woodfrog.

Grumpy Neighbors

Some letterboxing directions lead me to Beach Memorial Park in Trumbull today, where I was greeted with this nasty sign: "Park permit required year round" and "Trumbull residents only".

Year round? There wasn't a single car in the parking lot on a Sunday afternoon with spectacular winter weather. What are they afraid of? Hoards of out-of-town hikers in February?

Here in Shelton our trails are open to everyone, and there's no fee.

I ignored the sign, hoping the Trumbull police wouldn't haul me off to jail for hiking in the Trumbull woods.

The letterboxing clues brought me to an engraved outcrop in the woods, which said:

Trumbull is a town dedicated
to matters of the spirit
It's a town to live in
It's a town to remember
It's a town to love
If you're a resident

OK, I added that last line. But really, if Shelton, Monroe, Fairfield, and other towns in the region can share their parks with non-residents, why can't Trumbull?

Webb Mtn Discovery Zone

Monroe did a really nice job at their new "Webb Mountain Discovery Zone", located on 171 acres of new open space next to Webb Mtn Park, just over the Shelton border. There are lots of interpretive signs, benches, landscaping, security cameras, and wide easy trails. There were maps and scavenger hunt cards at the entryway when I visited today (see photos).

From Shelton, take East Village Road and just after you cross into Monroe, take a right at Webb Circle. The very large parking area and sign are on the left maybe half a mile up the road. Can't miss it.

Funding for the $35,000 "outdoor classroom" came largely from private businesses. Wouldn't it be nice to see some contributions like that from our own businesses here in Shelton?

Monkey Brains at Black Rock

These fruits of the Osage Orange Tree are nicknamed "Monkey Brains". I found them under a grove of trees near Black Rock Lighthouse in Bridgeport while geocaching.



I had never run across this bizarre tree before, so I looked it up on Wikipedia and discovered more interesting tidbits about it. Although the fruit are not very toxic, they tend to make you vomit. An oil of the fruit shows promise as a mosquito repellent.

Also, there are no animal that eat the fruit, so what's the point? Fruit is normally designed to be eaten for seed dispersal. According to one theory, giant ground sloths used to eat it, but went extinct when people came to North America.


The tree is native to the Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas and is also called Osage Apple, Wild Orange, Mock Orange and Bodark. The fruit has other nicknames besides Monkey Brains, including Monkey Ball, Monkey Fruit, and Brain Ball. So there you go, learning something every day.

By the way, the lighthouse and Seaside park are very picturesque and easy to get to in the middle of the winter. No crowds. The lighthouse was once on a island, but that's been connected to the mainland by a huge causeway of boulders you can walk on. From the parking lot, it's about a 15 minute walk.

WPA, CCC Work Projects

The photo is of the Indian Well Road bridge over Indian Hole Brook (which happened to be very dry at the time of the photo). If you've ever visited "the Well" at Indian Well, or driven along Indian Well Road between Route 110 and the state beach, you've probably noticed all the stone work along the road.


According to a Robert Novak article that appeared in the Huntington Herald on May 21, 1997, the stone work was completed during the Great Depression under the Works Progress Administration (WPA). According to Wikipedia, WPA projects included the construction of 650,000 miles of roads, 78,000 bridges, 125,000 buildings, and 700 miles of airport runways, as well as other projects.


The Post Office in downtown Shelton has another WPA product on display: A panoramic painting of the Derby-Shelton Dam from Riverview Park. Check out the symbolism next time you are standing in line. The factories below the dam are belting out smoke, which was considered a good thing in those days because that meant people were employed. Note also the name of the park on the piece of paper the woman is holding. It says, "Indian Park," which must have been the original name of Riverview Park.


According to the Novak article, while the WPA stone work was being constructed along the road, a CCC crew was in the woods creating the Paugussett "Blue Dot" Trail. The Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) was another depression-era work program.

Big Trees

There is a register of Really Big Connecticut Trees, which are actually called "Notable Trees" by the Connecticut Botanical Society. I've known that one of the registered trees was right here in Shelton at the French's Hill Open Space off of East Village Road, a Tulip Tree, but I hadn't been able to locate it until today, when I found the registration form while filing some old papers. According to the form, the circumferance is 14 feet 11 inches and is 123 feet tall.

I found the tree a few hundred feet off the end of Sagamore Road. To be honest, although it's a really big tree, I thought it would be larger. I've seen trees this big, althought they were always Oaks or Maples, and I have to admit I've never seen a Tulip Tree this big. The diameter was about 4 feet. It's a classic "Wolf" tree, one that grew all by itself in an open field, with a wide, spreading canopy, only to have a young forest grow up around it as the field was abandoned. I rarely see Tulip Trees with spreading crowns. Usually they are a tall, straight telephone pole with a narrow crown so high you can barely see it. (ID tip: Any unnaturally straight tree in the forest is probably a Tulip).

Back home, I Googled "big trees, Connecticut" (I kid you not) and came with the Notable Tree website. They've got the list of registered notable trees online, and I was surprised to find that there are five registered trees in Shelton: A purple European Beech (21 ft circumferance); a White Oak (I bet it's the one at the corner of East Village Road and Longfellow, 19 ft cir.); a Norway Spruce (could this be the one that took a trip to Rockefeller Center? 10 ft cir.); and a Sycamore (15 ft circ.). They won't tell you exactly where the trees are, because many are on private property.

None of the Shelton trees are the largest in the state. The Tulip Tree, when it was registered, was the 12th largest in the state. But that's nothing. Down south in the Appalachian cove forests, tulip trees can have a circumference of 20 to 30 feet (our is almost 16 ft). And they are one of the tallest trees in the forest.

Coordinates for the tree are N 41 20.649', W 73 08.237'