I had heard of Boyd Pond Park many years ago and in the back of my mind, I had often said that I needed to check it out. When I went back to school, I found my free time cut into my out of town trips, so I sought out local nature ‘fixes’. It was then that I found my way out to Boyd Pond Park.
When you drive down Boyd Pond Road you’ll see a dirt parking area on the right and left. Go to the left and you’ll see a place for frisbee golf and a wide-open field. On the right are miles of woods and dirt trails for the biking and hiking enthusiasts. If you follow the main trail to the end, you’ll be greeted by a solid, wooden footbridge that crosses over the shallow wetland at the end of Boyd Pond. It’s a magical place.
On a recent night after the Firefly experience, I ventured back to the park, almost at sunset, hoping to see one of the resident beavers. If one side of the park is a thickly wooded landscape of dirt trails, the other is more structured with playground equipment and baseball fields. That night I found games going on at the ballfield, so I headed to the dirt lot. Having parked the car, I headed down the trail with binoculars and my headlamp. I walked quietly as I neared the end where the dirt meets wood. Coming out from under the canopy of trees, I see a sky mixed with clouds and a sun setting over the horizon, coloring each of those straying clouds. The frogs were singing their chorus and birds were flitting about as nightfall approached. I slowly walked onto the bridge from under the cover of trees to find a painterly sky that continued to open up.
There’s a couple of overlooks built into the bridge and I headed towards the far end where the beaver lodge stood. I looked up into the sky and to the left, over the trees I just walked under, was a cloud, big and white. Over to my right was another bank of clouds hovering over the trees there and colored into a pinkish-orange hue. What lay between were thin, gray wispy clouds as if they were the landscape connecting two sets of mountains. In fact, it reminds me of a photo of Yellowstone with El Capitan on the left looking over the valley below. I stopped and took a deep breath. As I opened my eyes, I lifted my binoculars to search across the water for any beaver activity. From left to right, I scanned the water for ripples when I came across a beautiful dragonfly. It was a beautiful hue of blue. I followed him with my binoculars as he was lighting down on some grasses that were shooting into the sky. I quickly brought him into focus, when cruising right behind him and across my field of vision was a beaver, slightly out of focus! The timing and synchronicity were unbelievable and I quickly refocused my lens on the beaver, while I traced his path across the pond. Shortly, he slipped down into the water.
Turning my gaze back to the sky, I saw more clouds slowly turning from white to pink as the sun continued to sink into the horizon. The singing of the frogs began again and as I listened, I heard three maybe four different songs. The Spring Peepers, with their high-pitched voices, were easy to identify and represent the majority, by sound if not by numbers. Others that I heard sounded like they came from the Tree Frog family, though, it was hard to tell.
Looking across the water on the other side of the bridge, I raised my binoculars and after a few minutes, again, I see a beaver cruising across the water. He stopped where the water gave way to the ground and started chewing away at the vegetation. I sat there and watched, while he piled away food. When he decided he had had his fill, he slid back into the water, crossing under the bridge, slowly making his way home.
The sun had disappeared and with the sky almost black, I took in a deep breath as I looked at the sights around me, thinking about my good fortune. I flipped on my headlamp and made my way out of the woods.