A new section of Deer Pond Farm opens

Walter and Kathryn Wriston bought 835 acres of land. Over the years, they carved 20 miles of beautiful hiking trails into the land and judiciously managed the woods that surrounded them.

That the land straddled the Connecticut-New York line — 388 acres in Sherman, 447 acres in Pawling, N.Y. — was of no concern to the songbirds nesting in its trees, or the hawks flying overhead or the fox and white-tailed deer that might use the trails as their crepuscular passageways.

“Birds and wildlife don’t know boundaries,” said Cathy Hagadorn, executive director of Deer Pond Farm, which Kathryn Wriston gave to the Connecticut Audubon Society before her death in 2014.

Now, it won’t matter to the people who visit the nature center either.

This month, the Connecticut Audubon Society opened the New York land to the public for walking, birding, even snowshoeing in winter. It adds 10 miles of trail to the 10 in Sherman that opened in 2016, when the society announced it had acquired the farm.

The New York land is different than the Connecticut half, with more meadows and splendid views of the Taconic Mountains to the west. The society has maps of both the eastern and western trails on its website at www.ctaudubon.org/deerpond-farm-home

“There are rocky ledges and some beautiful overlooks,” said Milan Bull, senior director of science and conservation for the society. “There are two beautiful wetlands. You want to spend a day here to know the land.”

Hagadorn said that in 2016 the Connecticut Audubon Society considered opening all the property up to the public in one fell swoop.

But the size of the place made that daunting, she said — it’s the largest nature center the society owns. Connecticut Audubon’s staff needed to consult with its counterparts from the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation.

“Sometimes, opening in phases is a better idea,” she said.

The society also had to convert the Wristons’ home on the property into offices and a nature center, something that’s still a bit of a work in progress.

The property is not a wilderness. Walter Wriston, the former chairman and CEO of Citibank, had a passion for trail-making and the means to keep them in excellent shape.

But the society is now adding to the Wristons’ bequest. It’s built a pollinator garden to attract insects and other butterflies. It’s planning to plant native species to the part of the farm known as Cathedral Pines.

The society now can begin planning collaborations with the other nature centers on both sides of the state line, Hagadorn said. The geography of the property means that the Connecticut side drains into the Housatonic River watershed, the New York side into Hudson River watershed via the Croton River.

Those places include the Great Swamp, the 6,000-acre freshwater wetland in Putnam and Dutchess counties in New York; the Naromi Land Trust in Sherman; Weantinoge Heritage Land Trust based in Kent; and the 825-acre Great Hollow Nature Preserve and Ecological Research Center in New Fairfield.

“They’re all complementary to each other,” said Marge Jefferson, board member of the Naromi Land Trust. “The emphasis of each is a little different. But each is trying to make the public aware of ecology.”

Chad Seewagen, the director of Great Hollow, is already a collaborator. He helped the staff at Deer Pond Farm set up its Motus radio antennae.

The Motus system, which now stretches across North America, allows researchers to track the migration and flight patterns of birds that carry a tiny nanotag. When the birds pass a Motus antenna it sets off a ping, which allows researchers to know where the bird’s been and where it’s heading.

Seewagen has also set up nesting boxes for tree swallows on the Deer Pond Farm property.

Tree swallows, which swoop through the air to feed on insects, like open spaces and bodies of water. The Great Hollow preserve lacks this kind of swallow habitat. Deer Pond Farm has it.

“I don’t have any project in mind,” Seewagan said. “But we want to establish a colony of the birds for the future.”

While a disbeliever in boundaries, Hagadorn said, however, that one will remain in place. New Yorkers will have to drive to Deer Pond Farm’s headquarters in Sherman to park, then walk to get back on their native ground.

“It’s just a half-mile,” she said. “This is hiking!”