Deer Park is a 95-acre property owned and managed by the East Quabbin Land Trust (EQLT), generously donated to the Trust in two parcels by two separate landowners.  The property is divided by Simpson Road, known locally as Deer Park Road; an unmaintained two tract way that is canopied by high oak-hickory forests and bounded by a network of high quality stonewalls.  Land use history is clearly delineated across this property, and is reflected in discrete patches of habitats ranging from blocks of mature oak forest, to stands of white pine and gray birch in regenerating pastures, to tangles of shrubland.  Fish Brook originates on the Deer Park property, offering cold perennial stream habitat and a variety of wooded swamp and small marsh components.   EQLT is in the process of executing a habitat management plan to reclaim important early successional habitats on the Deer Park property; an overview of this management can be viewed HERE.


Deer Park is embedded within a much larger tract of wooded open space, and a result, supports populations of interior nesting species such as broad-winged hawk, pileated woodpecker, and especially in the oak-hickory blocks, scarlet tanager.  Early successional tracts, especially along Fish Brook, support American woodcock, blue-winged warbler, chestnut-sided warbler, common yellowthroat and indigo bunting.  Barred owl and ruffed grouse are encountered throughout.  The East Quabbin Land trust has developed a management plan that takes advantage of the land use history of the property, as well as its landscape context, and will soon begin enhancing and expanding early successional habitats on the property.


Deer Park is on Simpson Road in Hardwick, on the north side of Barre Road, about 1-mile east of Hardwick Common.  At this time there are no formal parking areas for the property, but it can be accessed from two points. 

The best access is gained with a moderate-clearance vehicle on Simpson Road.  From Barre Road, turn right onto Simpson Road and follow ~1/4-mile until the pavement ends.  Continue on another ~1/4 mile, and as the road begins to descend, there will be a barway on the right.  Park at this barway, on the shoulder, making sure that you do not block Simpson Road.  This spot will give access to the entire property.

The other access is available to all vehicles.  From Hardwick Common, drive east on Barre Road, past Simpson Road, and continue on ~1/4 mile until Barre Road drops into a dip at the crossing of Fish Brook.  There will be a barway leading to a long hayfield on the left side of the road.  Pull off near this barway without blocking access the field.  This hayfield is part of the Deer Park Preserve.  This parking will give access to this field and the wetlands adjacent to it, but because of the current state of invasives on the west edge of the field, this is not a great spot to access the greater property.


This description will be centered on the Simpson Road access.  If you are not able to park at the barway on Simpson Road as described above, parking along the fields on the paved section of Simpson Road and walking to the barway is an option.



Old Pastures/Oak Savanna:

Head through the barway on the east (uphill) side of Simpson Road.  You will immediately notice that some clearing has recently taken place here.  The ridge before you was the most recently grazed section of the property, with cattle active as recently as the mid-1980s.  Now this ridge is covered with a dense, short woodland of white pine, gray birch and red maple, among a fair number of oak poles.  Notice the patches of extensive juniper, now mostly dead from shading, that signal the recent open past.  Walk along a recently cleared woods road that begins heading south, and then loops up onto the ridge and turns back north.  Along this road you will shortly come to a recent clearing on top of the ridge, now with a vigorous undergrowth of huckleberry, lowbush blueberry and juniper in an area with well-spaced oaks.  The intention of the East Quabbin Land Trust is to reclaim this former pastureland as a ridgetop oak savanna, a somewhat rare ecosystem that once surely covered this ridge and supported a wealth of early successional bird species and specialized Lepidoptera.  The final structure here will be a ground cover of warm season grasses and lowbush blueberry beneath a sparse canopy of open-grown oak.  For more information on this plan, click HERE.  Climbing atop the large glacial erratic in this clearing, a view of the steeples of Hardwick Common will be seen to the west, and Mandell Hill to the east, once the reclamation project is completed.



Continuing northeast from the glacial erratic, still climbing a slight incline, you will notice that the trees continue to increase in size, and that oak becomes more dominant.  Compared to the southern end of this ridge and its low, dense even-aged trees, it becomes apparent that this pasture was abandoned in a north-to-south direction - this northern section was the first to have cattle pulled from it. 

Ridgetop Oak Forest:

A few hundred yards northeast of the glacial erratic a line of very large oaks define the  former boundary between forest and pasture.  North of this line is a high, closed canopy oak forest with fairly old trees and a fairly open understory.  This is the oldest section of forest on the property, and with its extensive bedrock outcrops and ledges, is one of the more special woodlands in all of Hardwick. The East Quabbin Land Trust has no intention of cutting in this section, instead using the southern edge of this block as the northern edge of the ridgeline oak savanna habitat it is about to reclaim.  However, this section of forest does show that regular disturbance events, like fire, were once much more common and important in shaping the composition of our forests.  Like much of the eastern and central Massachusetts forests, this forest block was almost certainly shaped by regular fire - a process that favored fire adapted species such as oak and suppressed non-fire-adapted species such as white pine.   Now, in the absence of regular fire disturbance, forest types such as these oak ridges are quickly overcome by fast growing white pine, and the biodiversity once provided by these fire-adapted communities is lost to white pine monoculture.   Notice in the photo below how there is no white pine in the canopy of the oak forest, but how the understory is dominated by white pine seedlings and poles.  This implies that fire had regularly removed pine in the past, but in recent years of fire suppression, pine has begun to take hold.  The pine understory in this photo is poised to quickly reach the canopy and change the composition of this forest, perhaps permanently.  The East Quabbin Land Trust intends to at least mimic the structural effects of fire by periodically removing non-fire-adapted species such as white pine from the understory to perpetuate this special block of oak forest.  The implementation of prescribed fire in this block of forest, as well as the Oak Savanna, would be ideal.




From the Ridgetop Oak Forest walk downslope to the east.  The impounded waterbody before you is the origin of Fish Brook, which is formed by the seeps that run from the surrounding hillsides.  Currently this section of the brook is impounded by beaver, which has created a shallow flooded basin characterized by a forest of standing deadwood which supports breeding wood duck, tree swallow, eastern bluebird and brown creeper in the summer, hordes of blackbirds in the autumn, and in the spring, this impounded waterbody acts as a vernal pool holding hundreds of spotted salamanders and a deafening chorus of wood frogs and spring peepers.  Regardless of beaver activity, there is always enough water naturally impounded here to support these vernal pool species.

Fish Brook runs south from here, first through a small red maple swamp, then a series of small open marshes and alder/elm thickets before running under Barre Road on its eventual way to the Ware River.

Fish Brook Meadows:

In early 2011 the first real step in habitat restoration took place in the wet pastures along Fish Brook.  Eleven acres of regenerated pasture - mostly invasive multi-flora rose and stands of low quality second growth red maple and gray birch - have been cleared to make way for a mosaic of early successional habitat.  Through periodic mowing, invasive control with herbicide, and perhaps light grazing, a diverse meadow/shrubland will be available to support suite of early successional birds such as American woodcock, blue-winged warbler, chestnut-sided warbler, common yellowthroat, indigo bunting, brown thrasher and gray catbird.  Native shrubs will be favored, and a good base of species still remain, such as various dogwoods, arrowwood, blackberry and winterberry. 

This area can easily be accessed by the barway at the hayfield on Barre Road, and eventually a trail may originate from here.