An Interpretive Trail Guide
	of the
	Scotland Brook Sanctuary
	Return to the Scotland Brook Sanctuary

Turn left now, and head down the Christmas Tree Trail. Here, the cutting of wild Christmas trees, balsam fir and white pine, is used to keep down the vegetation under the power lines, as an alternative to herbicide spraying or mowing. It provides a source of income as well! The trees are carefully pruned and shaped several times a year by a local forester, then selected ones are cut and sold on November 1st of each year.

The low conifers provide excellent cover and winter forage for the snowshoe hare, also called the varying hare, because it changes its coat from summer brown to winter white and back again.

Listen here for the sweet song of the white-throated sparrow, or the mechanical trill of the chipping sparrow, both lovers of brush and woodland edges.

You will soon approach a junction in the trail. Continue straight ahead to travel the Scotland Brook Trail, or turn right onto the Lady's Slipper Trail.

Scotland Brook Trail
This trail (red blazes) begins as you cross over the little stream called Scotland Brook, the sanctuary's namesake. The brook meanders across the northeastern corner of the property on its way to Pearl Lake, and eventually to the Ammonoosuc River. All along the Scotland Brook Trail, you'll be serenaded by the ever-present bubbling of this rocky little stream.

With its wet, slightly acidic soil and streamside habitat, the Scotland Brook Trail hosts 11 of the 14 species of fern occuring on the sanctuary.

Here in the wet, sunny area near the stream are the sensitive fern and the marsh fern. The tall ferns with woolly stems and a woody, cinnamon-colored fertile stalk are cinnamon ferns, and the small fern which tapers to both ends is the New York fern, named so because New Yorkers burn the candle at both ends! Farther down the trail and up a short ridge is a stand of the lacy, soft and aromatic Hay-Scented fern, which likes a slightly drier, upland site. Just before entering the woods, notice the Interrupted fern on your left. It is similar to the cinnamon fern, but prefers a stonier, drier soil. It is called interrupted, because the brown, fertile pinnae "interrupt" the middle of the blade.

Soon the trail turns to the right, into an abandoned pasture, now thick with young white pines. The year this forest began was apparently a good seed year for white pine, which is one of the first trees to sprout in a pasture. It was also a good year for the white pine weevil, which damages a tree's leader and causes double trunks. The crowded pines let such little sunlight down to the forest floor, that very few plants find enough light to grow. Slowly decaying pine needles also make the soil rather acidic. Here in the understory, the shade-loving ferns are the dominant plants.

Here you'll find the evergreen Christmas fern, and the Boott's wood fern, a fairly common hybrid of the spinulose and crested wood ferns. It is a good indicator of moist, sub-acid soil.

Long beech fern occurs here, a common fern in shady woods of northern New England, as does the rarer spinulose wood fern, having a delicate, triangular blade with a scaly stem and round fruit dots on the back. The Lady fern has a lacy blade with sickle-shaped fruit dots.

Hay-scented, cinnamon, and New York fern occur in these shady woods as well as in the sunnier fields.

Step carefully over the stream again, where the northern spring salamander lurks, a large, pink amphibian of cool, mountain streams. A few flowers do grow here; look for the nodding stars of the one-flowered wintergreen, and the ghostly Indian pipe.

In a little clearing as the trail makes an abrupt left turn, notice how the increased light allows an explosion of undergrowth. Bracken fern occurs here on the sunny path, a good indicator of poor, dry soil.

Birds foraging in these moist coniferous woods include the black-capped chickadee, magnolia warbler, and the melodious winter wren. In the spring you may also hear the deep booming of a drumming ruffed grouse, advertising his territory.

You come to a "T" in the trail; this is the Lady's Slipper Trail. Turn right to return to the Christmas Tree Trail , or turn left to continue.

Lady's Slipper Trail
Entering from the Christmas Tree trail, past the glacial boulders, the sunny, brushy field becomes a wet, second-growth spruce-fir forest. A red squirrel chortles from his lookout; you may find his favorite snacking perch by locating a pile of pinecone pieces below a branch or stump.

Porcupines often feed in the trees here. In the winter, their diet consists almost wholly of the inner bark of trees: maples, hemlock, spruce and fir being among their faviorite species.

The trail turns to the right, and you will discover a good place to practice reading the landscape. Notice the wire fence you will cross: a relic of the old farm that once existed here. Though the forest has reclaimed the land, its composition has been affected by the land's former use. Look carefully: to the right of the fence is spruce-fir forest, to the left are northern hardwoods: white and yellow birch, red maple, balsam fir, hobblebush and striped maple beneath. Why?

Whether a former farm was cultivated, pastured or hayed determines which species will get a head start when the land is abandoned. Other factors, such as good seed years, fire, dry spells, or windthrow also affect the forest composition. Was one side of the fence pasture and the other hayfield? Was one side abandoned before the other? We can only guess.

Moist, acidic soil, with a fair amount of sunlight here, supports a profusion of spring wildflowers. Here you'll find foamflower, clintonia, lady's slipper, helleborine, Jack-in-the-pulpit, bunchberry, Canada mayflower, Solomon's seal, starflower and red trillium, and many more! Sarsaparilla and wood sorrel bloom in shadier spots, and the oak fern is found here.

When you reach a "T" in the path, you've reached the Francis G. Moulton trail. Turn left to continue.

Francis G. Moulton Trail
This trail travels through an area of cradle and pillow topography. The thin, wet soil does not support trees very well as their root systems are shallow, leaving them susceptible to blowdowns. As the trees fall, their roots leave a hollow in the soil, then as the stump rots, it leaves a hummock. The forest here is a mosaic of 50-60 year old mixed northern hardwoods: balsam fir, red spruce, pine, red and sugar maple, white and yellow birch.

In springtime, two species of trillium nod here, the red trillium or "wake-robin" and the painted trillium. Diligent seekers may also find the purple-fringed orchis in July, the tiny twinflower, and Indian cucumber, as well as many species of mushroom.

Birds of the mixed woodlands abound here: hermit thrush, brown creeper, and solitary vireo. Ovenbirds shout their &$34;Teacherteacherteacher" and black-throated green warblers sing their lispy spring song.

Here you'll find moose and deer tracks on the trail, as they move through the woods looking for good browse. Just as it is easier for us to stay on the trail, they find it more convenient too!

Turning right at an old fork, you pass a small stand of aspen and enter an area heavily logged for white pine during the early 1970's. A few large ones are still left, rising above the deciduous sapling thickets. A gnarly old apple tree struggles to survive in the thick brush. Can you spot it? It probably once stood near an old homestead, or perhaps in the midst of an orchard. Apple trees like this one can provide valuable food for wildlife if given some room to produce again.

Soon, the forest opens up again, and you will glimpse a beaver pond on your left. As man has altered the landscape through his livelihood here, so has the beaver, just as dramatically. As you step over an old stone wall, you'll see an abandoned lodge, which once housed the original architects of this pond. The trail dips down to the pond edge. From this spot, the dam is the grassy ridge running across the pond to your right. Beavers created this pond in the early 1980's, and abandoned it perhaps five years later, for lack of young trees nearby to serve as winter food.

Pause for a moment, and the abundance of life and activity here will surprise you. Although the beavers are gone, they've created a rich and diverse habitat, preferred by many species of birds, frogs, and mammals. Water loving birds such as the belted kingfisher, great blue heron, wood duck and black duck may be seen feeding here during the summer. Olive-sided and alder flycatchers dart after insects, while tree swallows and chimney swifts sweep the air, and a flock of cedar waxwings fills a dead tree. Listen for the song of the scarlet tanager, veery, and northern parula warbler nesting nearby.

This is also the haunt of the mink, and its favorite prey the muskrat, as well as its cousin, the river otter.

Streams in beaver country are never abandoned for very long. Although the beavers are gone this year, even as you read this they may have returned to work on yet another dam just upstream, and create a new pond in the woods.

At the fork in the trail, continue straight ahead, along the pond edge and uphill. This is the loop called the Birches Trail.

Note:Francis G. Moulton was a local lawyer, whose law firm generously donated hundreds of dollars in valuable legal advice in his memory, to help create the Scotland Brook Sanctuary.

Birches Trail
Common gray treefrogs burst into song on a spring day, as you climb the hill through the forest of maple, red oak, white pine and white birch. You'll also find hop hornbeam here, or ironwood, an indicator of thin, dry, nutrient-rich soil, such as occurs here on the highest point of the sanctuary.

Several species of clubmoss creep across the path, lined with hay-scented fern and lowbush blueberry.

Notice all the logs on the ground, lying in the same direction, mostly uphill. These are blowdowns from the Hurricane of '38, when this whole hillside was flattened. After the hurricane, white and yellow birch seeded in quickly on the exposed soil, followed later by the oaks, maples, and other hardwoods, and now shade-tolerant beech, striped maple and balsam fir. Notice also the abundance of large stumps: evidence of a long-ago logging operation.

Again the trail dips down to the water, but this pond is different; it is the remains of an older beaver pond than the first. Dead snags stand amid thick grasses, willow and black alder shrubs. It can take 20 years for a pond to turn into a shrubby swamp such as this! There is less standing water, but no less activity; tree swallows nest in the snags, woodcocks probe for worms in the thickets, and a swamp sparrow trills from a stump. Adding to the spring and summer frog chorus of wood frogs, spring peepers, toads, green frogs and bullfrogs is the northern mink frog. This frog is so named because of its ability to produce a strong mink-like odor when handled roughly. Here, at the southern edge of its range, its hammer-like "cutcutcutcut" echoes through the marsh from June through Aug.

Swamp candles and blue flag iris bloom here in summer, and one may find smartweed, skullcap and nodding bur-marigold in the fall.

As you stroll uphill again, watch for blue-eyed grass in the path in springtime, wood asters in the fall. Soon you'll be walking alongside a well-built stone wall. The presence of many small rocks in the wall tells us that land to one side was probably cultivated; farmers took more care to remove smaller rocks from cultivated fields than from pastures. Notice the large trees growing along the wall, including a very large white birch. Because their proximity to the wall saved them from mowing as saplings, these short-trunked, spreading trees reached maturity when the area was still open, and grew to be "wolf trees," shading out any nearby competitors. Seeds from these large trees can dominate the composition of the surrounding young forest for years to come. They also become wonderful wildlife "hotels" as they rot and hollow, providing homes for woodpeckers, chickadees, racoons, porcupines, and other creatures.

Approaching the hilltop, you are in a forest dominated by birch, a blanket of sarsaparilla covering the ground between the fallen logs. On the path, watch for the red edible berries and tiny leaves of partridgeberry, and the white-veined leaves of the orchid called rattlesnake plantain. Cross over another stone wall, turn right, and start down the old woods road (this is a right of way across private property; please respect the owner's generosity and remain on the trail). You are now at the highest point of the sanctuary.

As you follow the stone wall, you may notice the strands of barbed wire above it, now embedded in the trees. This is an indication of a pasture that once enclosed livestock. New England farmers used several different methods to keep their animals in: some just used a high stone wall, some a wall topped with split chestnut rails, some wire fences, and some a stone wall with barbed wire running atop it, as here. Barbed wire fences were not used until the 1870's. How old do you think this one is?

A little farther, on your left, you will notice a line of large boulders coming down the hillside. At first glance it appears to be another stone wall, but the size of the rocks suggests that it may be a "boulder train," a place where the last glacier dumped its load of boulders, and they now lie in a row, as if placed there. Keep an eye out here for chipmunks and porcupines, which may den in these rock ledges.

Notice that the trees uphill are much larger and older, with more dead snags, than those down hill. What does this tell you about the land use on this side of the fence? Were these trees as affected by the '38 hurricane?

Here also is a large log lying across the trail. Many young plants, including tree seedlings, are using it for a "nurse log." These woods are filled with song in the spring. Listen for the hermit and the wood thrush, black and white warbler, Blackburnian warbler, ovenbird, red-eyed vireo, and the rose-breasted grosbeak, all inhabitants of the mixed deciduous second growth forest.

The road passes close to an old field on the left, which has been used to grow corn. Notice the pile of rocks tossed here by the farmer, then head downhill into the woods again. On the trail to the left stands a big white pine snag, a "sentinel pine" from a long ago field. The big, oblong holes in the trunk were carved by the pileated woodpecker, the largest woodpecker in the northeast, in its search for insects. Flying squirrels may use this snag for a winter den.

Soon you'll cross over another stone wall and enter dense sapling thickets once again, hiding black-throated blue warblers, American redstarts and the necklaced Canada warbler. Back at the beaver pond, a left turn will take you back down the Francis G. Moulton Trail.