Brownfield Bog: A sense of place grows with time
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By Bridie McGreavy
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PHOTO: COURTESY BRIDIE MCGREAVY |
The sun shone in the late afternoon sky and orange light filtered through long blue stem grasses. White clouds illuminated by a deep blue sky drifted high above and the air made my nostrils tingle with every intake of breath. On this day, I was walking in the Brownfield Bog with my mom and her dog Ned. The Brownfield Bog is a vast wetland system in Maine's Saco River watershed, one that I have been exploring since early childhood. A single road cuts through the western edge of this wildlife management area, ending at a place locally known as Goose Pasture, although I don't remember ever seeing geese here. An old red oak tree at the end of the road into Goose Pasture is a favorite destination on our regular walks, where we sit and watch the wetlands that surround the peninsula. We entered Goose Pasture as we usually do, breaking from the dark forest of poplar and striped maple into open fields surrounded by water.
Approaching the gnarled oak at the end of the road, I caught sight of movement on the sand and spied a shiny black and purple wasp with a long thin stinger. A brown spider with black beady eyes stood unmoving nearby in the sand, its front legs raised. The wasp approached the spider and darted its long stinger into the spider's abdomen. Again. And again. The two were locked in a jousting match, the spider clearly on the defense against the wasp's deadly lance. The wasp pierced the spider until its movements were barely perceptible and then the spider froze, paralyzed. The wasp grasped the spider between its forelegs and hauled it away through the grasses. My impulse was to follow, but I did not, leaving the two to finish the encounter unwatched.
Stories from the bog
At that moment, I wondered if there was more to the wasp and spider story than a simple predator-prey interaction. With every trip into the Brownfield Bog, I experience something that makes me pause and wonder. This experience was no different from the countless others. Like when I was nine years old and saw a turtle laying its eggs for the first time, perfect white spheres dropping into a half-dollar size hole in the dirt road. Two years ago, when I came face-to-face with a very surprised moose, which looked me straight in the eyes for 10 seconds, snorted, turned, and ambled off through the woods. The time I entered Goose Pasture and the old red oak had lost a limb, creating a dread in my heart that my tree will soon become someone else's firewood. The time I watched two marsh hawks glide and dip over the leatherleaf bog patches, their white rumps flashing as they searched for mice and small birds. Over the years here, I have witnessed nature in its varied forms, repeating patterns and new refrains. The wasp and spider experience did not strike me as anything but another interesting encounter, and I did not give it much thought after leaving the bog. Until the following year on nearly the same date.
The day was again classic weather that fools you into thinking the afternoon will last forever. In the exact same spot, near the old red oak, I came upon the wasp and the spider locked in battle once again. My heart and head pulsed with excitement and confusion. How could this scene be repeating itself? How could I be so lucky to see this incredible interaction again? What does this mean? The term dejá vu does not even come close to describing my reaction.
This was not just an amazing natural event that I was lucky to witness two years in a row. This was the moment that I came to understand the power of “place.” At that moment, I felt the heartbeat of the Earth in perfect rhythm, a natural reverberation that is as old as life itself. A subtle pulse that you only become attuned to with repetition, experiencing the ebb and tide of the seasons in one place, until you know what to expect, but at the same time are constantly surprised by the newness.
A sense of place
What is “place?” Like the old red oak in the bog, place has roots that sink into the Earth, grounding us to the here and now. A sense of place grows with time, branching in new directions but maintaining the core, the trunk that supports its growth. You can branch out and grow to love other places, like Johnson Mountain, Holt Pond, the backyard of the house in which I now live. But the bog is home, the place I always come back to in my mind and body. The leaves of a tree provide a final metaphor for place. I find that like the tree, the sun fuels my connection to place. On a brilliant day, the bog is the place I long for.
I later learned the science behind what I observed on those two occasions. The wasp, commonly referred to as a mud dauber, is a species belonging to the family Ichneumonidae. Mud daubers hunt spiders and other arthropods, paralyzing them with their long, poison-tipped stingers. The wasp then drags the body to the nest it creates for its young. When the young hatch, they feed on the paralyzed, yet still fresh, spider.
This scientific explanation is fascinating. However for me, the real meaning in this encounter is in the awareness that I could have missed seeing it, twice. But I didn't. I was there, present in my senses. And I was there because I love it, my home.
Bridie McGreavy is watershed education manager at the Lakes Environmental Association in Bridgton, Maine http://www.mainelakes.org. A version of this article appeared in the “Earth Notes” column in The Bridgton News.
© 2007 The Gulf of Maine Times