The first rays of morning sunshine pierced the dark green woods at the far end of Hankins Pond. Haunting rising and falling kek kek kek calls carried through the swirling strands of gray mist that floated over the pond.  I stepped onto dew laden grass, slipped on my binocular harness, shouldered my camp stool, spotting scope and backpack, and began a slow, transition-into-nature walk down the old road that ran along the edge of the pond.  I had come to encounter the wild.

A High Hazard

In 2013 the Pennsylvania Fish and Game Commission determined that the 170 year old hand-built stone dam at Hankins Pond posed a “high hazard.” If it were to give way in a heavy flood there was substantial risk for downstream flooding, property damage, even loss of life.  Once this determination was made the old stone slabs that held back the 90 acres of impounded water were lifted out and the pond was drained.

Since then Hankins Pond has been in a state of limbo.  The Fish and Game Commission looked at options to rebuild the dam.  Concerned citizens organized, circulated a petition and lobbied for restoration.  The state ultimately decided that the hazard was too high; the cost too great, and the only solution was to rip a 150 foot wide chunk out of the old dam to permanently reduce the hazard. The county in turn filed an injunction to stop this demolition and in 2019 eventually negotiated an agreement to take over the site, fix the dam, and restore the pond.  But when the pandemic hit the project was put on hold.

During the intervening eight years ever-opportunistic, ever-creative nature took full advantage of this state of human-created limbo. The process of rewilding created a wetland where water once stood.  Grasses and reeds grew.  Rains came, water levels rose and fell.  Mudflats appeared and disappeared. Swatches of open water emerged and evaporated.  Beavers assisted by constructing a low dam that raised the water level a few inches. 

Rewilding

Hankins Pond sits in a natural bowl surrounded by hills and woods.  Several unnamed streams and a number of natural springs flow into the bowl.  The area most likely was a natural pond or wetland before the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company built the dam in the early 1850s to store water needed to maintain depth in the canals that carried barges of anthracite coals from Pennsylvania to the Hudson River and then to New York City.

When the old dam was breached in 2013 the wetland returned.  No humans oversaw or managed this transition, an example of what might be called “accidental rewilding.”  I liked the following description of rewilding that I found online.

Rewilding is a progressive approach to conservation.  It’s about letting nature take care of itself, enabling natural processes to shape land and sea, repair damaged ecosystems and restore degraded landscapes.  Through rewilding, wildlife’s natural rhythms create wilder, more biodiverse habitats.

For the birds and animals the rewilding of Hankins Pond did not go unnoticed.  Birds constantly seek “just right” habitat.  Every year a greater variety of ducks began to land, rest, feed and breed in the hidden reaches of the new wetland.  Sandpipers and snipes came to patrol the mudflats and feed on the abundant invertebrates.  Coots, grebes, gallinules and bitterns swam or step-slithered through the dense cattails and bulrushes.  Red-winged blackbirds and tree swallows appeared in abundance to swoop and circle over the rich wetland, prospering and proliferating in a perfect habitat.

Where the birds gather, bird watchers follow.  Hankins Pond became an eBirding “Hotspot” with 146 species of bird recorded.  Nature watchers strolled along the old road that runs along one side and came to sit—a bench has been installed by the Friends of Hankins Pond—and to look and listen, to observe the process of rewilding.

Morning Songs

I reached my destination, a little peninsula that stuck out into the wetland and set up my camp stool beneath a red maple, a location that offered a good view across and up and down the marsh.  After settling in I quieted my mind and began to listen to the sounds around me. 

I heard the sweet, musical chinga, chinga, chinga trill of a swamp sparrow. A song sparrow joined in with a lilting maids, maids, put on the tea kettle lettle lettle.  A red-winged blackbird, its orange shoulder bars gleaming in the morning sunlight, perched on a cattail in front of me, swayed back and forth, and sang a bright konkaree, konkaree.

And then the weird, wild sounds started, the ascending and descending crazed laughter-like call of a pied-billed grebe, kuk-kuk-cow-cow-cow-cowp-cowp-cowp.  Another grebe answered.  Next, the complaining, whining kek, kek, kek call of a common gallinule was answered by two others from across the wetland.  A coot joined in with a grating, guttural kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk.

These marsh birds were not to be heard on a typical lake or in a park.  They all needed a large undisturbed wetland to feed and breed, to feel safe and secure.  I scanned the marsh with my binoculars and scope but couldn’t spot any of them.  They were well hidden among the grasses and reeds.

I learned later that these exotic and wild sounding bird calls, especially those of the American coot were recorded and used for background jungle sounds in the Tarzan movies.

The Sun Rises

Soon the sun lifted above the dark green wooded hills that surrounded the pond.  For a few moments the sunlight transformed the mist from gray strands to luminous gold threads. Then as the temperature rose the mist vanished. Around the marsh frogs called; green frogs with their tuneless banjo twang and bullfrogs with their deep, base hrrrrmp, wetland background music.

I heard a rooster crow. There was a farm just across the highway from the dam; a reminder of how wild and domestic can exist in close proximity.  I heard splashes and wing flaps out on the wetland, scanned but saw nothing.  A hint of motion in the grasses in front of me, binoculars up, a male wood duck swam slowly, pausing and preening before swimming on.  A drake mallard flew over the far end of the pond, set its wings, glided down and splashed on the water amidst tall green grasses.

From the upper end of the pond a coo, coo, coo call.  I listened carefully and tried to echo-locate the bird.  Quiet.  Then it called again, coo, coo, coo.  More silence.  Was it a black-billed cuckoo or a least bittern?  Then the bird called steadily.  The tone and the location in the grasses at the edge of the pond confirmed that it was a least bittern, an uncommon, hidden, solitary marsh bird that had found a home at Hankins Pond.

Three bigger birds flew across the marsh with slow steady flaps.  What were they?  Binoculars up, I caught a glimpse of them in flight and watched as they landed in the bare branches of a tall dead tree.  They were green herons, another unusual sighting, as they are uncommon and usually solitary.  Could this be a family, two young birds reared in the quiet and plenty of the wetland, learning how to live independently with the instruction of their mother?

I looked down and noticed bands of vegetation.  In front of me at the edge of the high ground red osier dogwood bushes yielded to tall goldenrod plants with russet-tinged top leaves.  At water’s edge pale blue wild irises transitioned to slender, tubular moisture loving grasses.  On a newly emerged black brown mud flat tendrils of sprouting grass looked like green stubble.  Past a patch of open water grew true marsh plants, tall, pale-green, thick-stemmed cattails and slender, dark green bulrushes.  Each plant grew precisely in its preferred habitat as if the process of rewilding was designed and arrayed by an invisible and highly-informed hand.

Behind me I heard the woodland songbirds, the energetic teecha-teecha-teecha of an ovenbird, the rich melodious pidoo, pidoo of a Baltimore oriole, the haunting, ethereal, descending vrdi vrreed vrreed vreer vreer of a veery, and the flute like ee-o-lay of a wood thrush.  The songs heard; the birds hidden.

Three Visits, Three Moods

After my hour long sit spot I walked the road toward the upper end of the pond where there was a number of shallow oblong ponds that had once been used as a fish hatchery.  Stepping along the high ground between the ponds I saw red-winged black birds dart out of the second growth trees and bushes, hover in the air, and scold me with harsh calls.  I was an intruder into their realm.

The reaction of the red-wings was very different from the birds that lived in my yard, the house wren that sat on a tall bean pole and sang while I worked in the garden, the robins and catbirds that lifted lazily onto a lower tree branch when I walked across the yard.  These yard birds knew me well, had assessed my threat potential, and vetted me as harmless.

Here, in the rewilded wetland it was a different story.   The birds were wary on this quiet morning when they could easily see and hear my approach.  And it wasn’t just the blackbirds that were on guard for when I first stood up to use my spotting scope a flock of twenty mallards jumped up in alarm from the far edge of the marsh and flew away.  I felt a sense of distance, a sense of separation from the wildness around me.

I had a very different impression a few weeks earlier when I visited Hankins Pond on a sunny, windy afternoon.  Perhaps the sound of the wind diminished my presence. The birds seemed relaxed, peaceful and on display. I watched a family of geese preen and feed.  I saw a mother wood duck lead her ducklings through a watery patch of weeds.  I gazed at a flock of mallards resting on a mud bank feeding and preening.

These were scenes I had never seen before, views of ducks and geese completely at home, in their natural state, in the midst of their breeding season, a time of abundance.  I had felt welcomed into their secret world, transfixed and transported by the intimacy of what I saw.

Then on my third visit a week after my sit spot I discovered a very different wetland; the water level had dropped, mudflats had emerged, cattails had grown taller, marsh grasses swayed in the wind.

On that day the red-winged black birds seemed less alarmed by my presence and posed for photos.  Scanning the wetland I caught a hint of motion, brown plumage amidst old brown cattail stems, the family of Canada geese, the goslings much bigger now stretching out their long necks and feeding, imitating the parent geese.

I glanced up at a pair of turkey vultures gliding high overhead and when I looked back the geese were gone, vanished into the reeds.  A male wood duck swam into view and disappeared into the grasses.

The impression was of stealthiness in a safe and secure environment, not off putting, almost comforting to see the birds blending in so seamlessly.  The ducks and geese were most likely preparing for their summer molt when they shed their flight feathers to grow new ones for the fall migration, a time when they are vulnerable, when they need to stay hidden, when they need the shelter that this vast wetland offers.

The Mysteries of Rewilding

Three different visits to Hankins Pond; three different impressions: one of abundance, one of wariness, one of security. I had come with the thought that I could fully know wildness in one sitting but instead I encountered the mystery of three different impressions.  Wildness, I reflected, was not to be understood in one visit. There was much more to learn here.

Feeling simultaneously frustrated, humbled, intrigued, and encouraged, I recalled what Helen Macdonald wrote in her book Vesper Flights about her observations at a rewilded fen in England.

“This way of watching wildlife is full of difficulty and mystery, and it makes the landscape seem intrinsic to what its creatures are: things in the present moment—bewitching, complicated and always new.”

And there was something more.  My mind circled back to the image of the russet tipped goldenrod leaves.  This plant was, I discovered, a wrinkleleaf goldenrod, a flowering perennial that favors wet soils, that in late summer and early fall provides a rich supply of sweet nectar and abundant pollen to more than a 100 species of butterflies and moths, and that in winter yields plentiful seeds for juncos, sparrows and finches. 

Something about this plant, growing at a perfect location in this wild wetland, providing for the insects and birds and in turn being propagated by those same insects and birds seemed to draw me closer to a deep pulse of life, a pulse that instantly induced a shift toward wellness of mind, toward a sense of being part of an interconnected matrix of life.

A Vision for the Future

Personally, I would be happy to see Hankins Pond remain in limbo. I could return often to watch the process of rewilding continue to unfold. I could come to spot uncommon birds, to take in the ever-changing views of nature, and to share these experiences with a semi-secret band of birders and nature lovers.

But, the site is now in the hands of the county and the latest news indicates that they have the funds to move forward.  The plan calls for building an alternate narrow spillway that leaves the historic dam intact, installing a fire hydrant for local fire companies, and perhaps creating a small pond for fishing and recreation.  Most likely there will be a parking lot, a few picnic tables and a hiking trail along the old road.

Yet, I envision more, perhaps a walkway alongside the beautiful old handcrafted stone dam with signs explaining the history of the D & H Canal Company, the construction of the dam, and the original need for the pond.  Perhaps the wetland can be designated as a nature preserve.  I can imagine a guided nature path, a boardwalk out into the marsh and an observation tower where all can come to see, listen, and connect with the complex and ever changing beauty of a wild wetland, where all can appreciate the gift of rewilding that nature bestows.

This sit spot was conducted at Hankins Pond near Mount Pleasant, PA on June 18, 2021.  You can read about more sit spots and wander walks on this blog and in my book, The Stillness of the Living Forest: A Year of Listening and Learning available through Shanti Arts Publishing (The Stillness of the Living Forest, John Harvey (shantiarts.co)  and at Amazon.com. (The Stillness of the Living Forest: A Year of Listening and Learning: Harvey, John: 9781947067592: Amazon.com: Books.)

Definition of Rewilding:  rewilding – Google Search.

Thanks to Mark Nepo for the concepts of “pulse of life, mental wellness, and right vision.” (The Book of Awakening)