Town Triangle
AUTOMOBILES rush past it — pedestrians ignore it — tax assessors deprecate it! Hemmed in by modern highways, the Triangle is probably regarded by many as a community disgrace.
Nature allocated this swamp, together with several others, to a territory which eventually became one of Boston’s finest suburbs. Other marshy tracts in the district have been blotted up gradually by the advance of civic development; only this three-cornered piece remains. Hands have not changed its natural characteristics. It is the same now as it was when unbroken forest swept across the state, and aborigines snared rabbits and heath hens where now gleam the granite and plate glass of cities.
Trees border the swamp and conceal its wetter parts. Very little of the actual fen is visible to a casual glance, except when the scythe of frost has bared the trees. In winter, strips of ice attract neighborhood children. Otherwise, the remnant of earlier days abides quietly in the midst of houses and traffic.
There is a small group of naturalists who do not consider the swamp undesirable: they are grateful for its presence. They dread the inevitable day when the first steam shovel will belch mephitic smoke across the cat-tails, and destroy a cherished patch of fringed gentians with its clanking jaws — when joe-pye weed, jewelweed, alder, and pine are supplanted by raw, scalped soil and the lengthening skeletons of Construction. They wonder how long the old chestnut, with its red-shouldered hawk’s nest, will stand — and the pine stump which shelters a pair of screech owls each spring.
Not all the swamp is lowland and damp. There are higher sectors where maple and pine grow together, and a small grove of chestnut, now decimated by blight. Two small brooks gurgle through the place. Their view of the sun is restricted to the swamp, for on either side the waters have been confined to prosaic conduits. Wild flowers grow here in abundance, and winds have transported seeds of cultivated plants from near-by gardens. Coreopsis glows in widening patches; foxglove rears tall stalks of pendent bells, and the ubiquitous tiger lily has made its appearance lately. Autumn finds purple boltonia and orange-red helenium matching the brilliance of fall tints in the colorable swamp-maple leaves.
Early in the year, spring green is dusted over the Triangle; a pale yellowgreen which is superseded, later, by the heartier jade of fully developed foliage. The swamp is at its wettest. Brooks are bursting with rapid water which surges over banks and wanders gayly through the alders and maples, sucking at their roots with temporary insistence. Last April we discovered the nest of a woodcock at the edge of a large clump of alders where the overflow had been halted by a slight rise. Four dun eggs, faintly mottled with brown, were in the scraggly structure on the ground. The bird chooses these miasmal spots in which to nest, for the moist soil contains an army of worms — the woodcock’s principal dietary item. Progress through the swamp in spring is not always easy. Although rubber boots offer some protection, they soon become weighted with gouts of mud and impede walking. However, the tangy smell of green things growing, the warmth of the new season, and the pleasure of being on the first field trip of the year readily discount attendant inconveniences.
The next discovery was the nest of a white-breasted nuthatch. If the Collector had not seen the bird emerge from a hole, we should have passed without suspecting that a nest was anywhere in the vicinity. The bird makes its home in old woodpecker holes, bird boxes, and sometimes excavates a nesthole in a decayed post or stump. Here the nuthatch had found a hole at the base of a maple — a cavity that began at ground level and dipped downward. Six pinkish eggs, each with a few speckles of lavender and red, were eight inches below the ground, on a base of shredded bark and feathers. It was fortunate that the overflow had not inundated that part of the swamp, or the hole would have become a miniature well, and the eggs been destroyed.
A pair of hawks were in the chestnut grove. They were repairing the bulky platform which had been their nest for several previous seasons. Within a week the female would take her marital affairs seriously, and lay the first of three large, blotched eggs. Two chickadees had taken possession of an old birch stub which protruded from the water. In its hollowed crown they were packing pine needles and moss, upon which, sometime in May, the small eggs would be cushioned softly. Crows had eggs in a pine, and as we clumped back to the car we barged into the rootletlined nest of a blue jay. The raucous female shattered the swamp’s quiet with her harsh cries; we could hear them long after we left the place.
May had been torn from calendars, and the first week of June was ending, before we returned to the Triangle. Now foliage was fully developed, and April freshets had returned to the brooks. No longer did water rush angrily over the banks, but ambled slowly between them, as though reluctant to forsake the gold of the sun and the green of the swamp for perpetual night in the waiting conduits.
Breeding season was at peak. Nests were finished, eggs laid, and males singing in favorite trees. One section of the swamp cradles an acre of goldenrod, tussocks of grass, and ironweed. Various warblers find this spot to their liking. The first nest was that of a chestnut-sided warbler. It was situated in one of the ironweeds. The plantdown and bark-strip cup contained four creamy-white, brown-dotted eggs. The male had been singing near by in a sapling maple. Had we not seen him, we should have classified the song as that of a redstart. This species delights in imitating notes of other warblers, and is an accomplished mimic. In the maple where the warbler had been singing, a redstart had utilized a crotch in which to build her nest. It was seven feet from the ground and held a single egg. The egg was cold and one side of the nest torn. Possibly a house cat had passed recently.
One of the most beautiful birds that breed in the swamp is the goldenwinged warbler. Several pairs nest here each June, usually in the goldenrod. Northern yellowthroats nest in the same locale, and sometimes it requires careful examination to distinguish between the two nests. Homes of the goldenwings contain grapevine bark in the side walls and bottom, and little lining. The nest is bulky for such a small bird. Yellowthroat nests are compacted of finer materials and lined with grasses, hair, or both. Eggs of the two species are similar in many instances.
The field of goldenrod abuts a copse of maple which merges with a thick growth of hardwood and a few conifers. In these woods, perched precariously on the side of a knoll, a huge rock teeters. Some day an earth tremor may dislodge the glacial monolith, and it will plunge savagely into the swamp. A lacy cap of moss and ferns crowns its top; its sides wear a beard of gray lichens and the patina of age. Beneath it we found the nest and eggs of a black and white warbler. The nest was tucked into the ground and composed of interlaced leaves, rootlets, and dried grasses. Fluffy tan fern wool served as a lining. There were four eggs, creamywhite, and peppered with chestnut and lavender. Faint wreaths of purple haloed the larger ends. A jut of the rock sheltered the nest from rain and violent winds. It was a beautiful specimen of bird architecture in an ideal spot — as long as the imminent downfall of the rock did not take place.
Before we left the swamp, an upended quarter moon was pouring pale light on the treetops, and a sleepy thrush just ending its evening song.
July, the fourth of the month, found us in the Triangle again. The swamp was entirely dry and ablaze with flower color. Bird songs were fewer than in June. We found a nest that has remained in our memories as the most exquisite we ever examined. It was the nest of a goldfinch, built around the stalk of a milkweed plant. Small it was, and as dainty as a hummingbird’s. Spider web and plant down were the only materials used. The structure was as symmetrical as though woven on a loom, and the mechanics of suspension on the stalk a feat of engineering skill. There were five eggs in the nest, bluishwhite and unmarked.
Each time we leave the Triangle we wonder if it will be there to greet us again. For the welfare of a thriving community, we know that it must be absorbed in the maw of progress. Yet its passing will leave an echo in the hearts of those who know it intimately.