Saxtons River Valley Trails Initiative

08/15/2024

Stop by Paper Mill Rd on Monday to see the progress! RSVP for a time slot, 4:30 or 5:30.

07/31/2024

Exciting news about recreational improvements ot the lower Saxtons River!

The start date for removal of the old dam on the lower Saxtons River, under the Rt. 5 bridge in Westminster, has been pushed back to Aug. 6 or possibly later, since the contractor is busy with flood response. The work is funded by grants and organized by the Connecticut River Conservancy (https://www.facebook.com/connecticutriver). The attached map shows the recreational amenties that will be added along Paper Mill Rd. after the dam is gone--parking spaces and a safe, gradual trail down to the river for swimming and fishing. If you've used the current very steep trail, you'll appreciate this upgrade. --Peter Bergstrom

06/19/2024

Look for these new trail marker signs soon!

06/05/2024

New trail marker signs are ordered and will arrive in a week or two. The ones that only mention BFHS will be inside the park, since they got that section built and maintain it, while the others will go along the undeveloped section south of the park, from the wastewater plant gate to Paper Mill Rd. We are about to kick off a planning grant process to design the southern section. The section from Paper Mill Rd to the Basin Farm will be developoed next, still called the "Saxtons River Valley Trail."--Peter Bergstrom

05/01/2024

I heard and/or saw six recently arrived spring migrant birds at the Riverfront Park today: gray catbird, warbling vireo, Baltimore oriole, palm & yellow-rumped warbler, and chimney swift. My Merlin sound ID app kept mis-identifying the oriole as an osprey (osprey are rare here), so take what it says with a dose of skepticism. (The two calls do sound alike.) I took this photo of a catbird at the park in 2019, the year that one overwintered near Cold Springs.--Peter Bergstrom

01/17/2024

Bald eagle and ducks at the BF Riverfront Park today. About 200 mallards and a few black ducks (lower right of the 4th image) were crammed into a small pond that never freezes near the CT River in the park. They usally leave the pond to feed elsewhere during the day, but today this bald eagle was perched on a tree overlooking the ice-free section of the river next to the park, where there were already about 20 mergansers. Mergansers are diving ducks, so they can easily evade a hunting eagle, but the other ducks are "dabblers" and can't dive. Shortly after the eagle left this tree, the mallards started flying from the pond to the river in large groups--how did they know that the eagle was gone?

01/03/2024

The goldfish that someone added to Cold Springs at the Riverfront Park a year or two ago are gone, but now it has a plastic mallard decoy, and what appeared to be food for the ducks (I saw 19 mallards there today). The food looks too dense for bread--tofu? cheese? I saw some hooded mergansers on the river, but none of the more usual common mergansers--Peter Bergstrom

12/19/2023

Very high water at the Riverfront Park this afternoon! Almost all of the steps were covered!

10/04/2023

Lots of energy from these students today!