A Sanctuary In Our Midst

 

clues to their makers.  He clipped articles about various tribes and about animals, plants and

 

swamps. He began to write, eventually becoming an accomplished novelist and essayist.  His

 

fascination and love of nature lived as many days as he did.

 

 

 

He watched in awe as the farm slowly reverted to wildness, stunned by the power of nature to

 

reclaim its own.  Of the farm, my father wrote “As I grew old, the land grew young.”

 

 

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In the spring, life quickens in the mysterious ponds that appear like Brigadoon in low-lying areas

 

of the Mulvihill sanctuary.  These vernal ponds host populations of toads, frogs, crustaceans,

 

insects and rare salamanders, that for a brief enchanting time, appear, mate and lay eggs before

 

the ponds vanish like the fireflies of summer, like mirages on the sand.  Birds, reptiles and

 

mammals come to feed on the egg masses, while the absence of fish in these fleeting pools

 

ensures that prodigious numbers of creatures emerge safely.  Witnessed by few, the ponds erupt

 

with beauty and biodiversity.  Yet they are among the most vulnerable of ecosystems, with many

 

of their species dormant and invisible under leaf litter most of the year.  Unprotected by the laws

 

that safeguard wetlands, vernal ponds have fallen through the legislative cracks and are at risk all

 

across our land.

 

 

 

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After WWII, my parents and grandparents planted white pines by the hundreds upon the sandy

 

hill next to the house. Now called The Cathedral by hikers, its tall trees lift one’s eyes high above

 

the forest floor. Amid the abundant bird life and the sharp scent of pine needles, tranquility

 

comes easily. We call it Hoppy Toad Hill.

 

 

 

Never has the long driveway been paved.  No tennis court or swimming pool disrupts the earth,

 

the quietude at the beautiful old home.

 

 

 

Thanks to the foresight of voters and the Community Preservation Fund, the seventy-five acre

 

Anna and Daniel Mulvihill Preserve has been purchased to protect critical wildlife habitat and

 

groundwater for the South Fork of Long Island.  Twenty-five acres in the adjacentGreatSwamp

 

have similarly been preserved bySouthamptonTownship. Named for my father who saved it by

 

buying it before the passage of laws prohibiting the desecration of wetlands, The Willliam

 

Mulvihill Preserve holds unimaginable amounts of water in its kettlehole bogs.  This area is on

 

the groundwater divide for the South Fork and recharges the Long Pond Greenbelt as well as

 

areas to the west, in a vitally important process which replenishes the aquifers.  Especially on an

 

island, groundwater is priceless compared to land valued at far higher amounts.  As we lose sight

 

of our need to protect clean water for the future, we indeed forget that we too are mammals

 

within a habitat, a species dependent upon the sun, upon cycles of rainfall, lifesaving and

 

elemental.

 

 

 

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They fly, slither, lumber, crawl, hop, dart and leap.  They burrow, swim, run, waddle, jump,

 

prance and scamper. They caw, croak, growl, whimper, snort, buzz and sing. On pathways of

 

scent the animals move, as the chemicals known as pheromones stimulate a multitude of

 

behaviors within a species. Like woodland choreography, dangerous and sublime, our wild

 

things all live in the complex web of relationships, mostly unseen, undocumented by humans.

 

Interdependence governs the forest where even predator and prey are in their native harmony, in

 

mutual need.

 

 

 

Between Brickiln and Scuttlehole Roads lies this microcosm of a planet, a paradise hidden.  We

 

race around it from store to village, house to house.  Fortunate are those who slow down, unplug

 

and quietly enter the lush sanctuary, the beckoning wood.  For in nature is a mirror to behold and

 

in reverence is serenity born. ■