Halibut Point Wetlands

Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) alongside the Babson Farm Quarry

Although Halibut Point is a coastal peninsula its wetlands are entirely fresh water features. No salt marshes, beaches, nor mud flats exist along its rocky shoreline.

In areas that retain moisture for at least part of the year water-loving plants like this Winterberry may form wetland communities thriving in a damp swale on the palisade of the spring-fed quarry.

A Tupelo tree (Nyssa sylvatica) growing beside cattails (Typha latifolia)

As water filled the deep, sheer-sided Babson Farm Quarry it formed a lake with very little plant life able to root except in a few shallow areas along margin.

Beaver

An itinerant beaver built a lodge behind the cattails and lived in the quarry lake for a few years. Normally beaver make their own ponds by damming a stream.

Black Chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) above fruiting moss

Certain pockets in the moors above the quarry retain enough snowmelt and rain water to support micro wetlands. Plants in such places may have to concentrate their active growth in the spring.

Larger Blue Flag (Iris versicolor)

In areas where upland runoff concentrates steady moisture by the shoreline small wetlands dot the fringe of Halibut Point.

Purple Loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) with Cattails

These pockets lend a lush relief to the bare granite rim and weather-battered moors that surround them.

Great Blue Heron amidst Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata)

Man-made ponds have developed in many of the old motions, the smaller quarrying sites shallow enough to host water plants. As distinct from the lake they support a rich variety of flora and fauna in temperate water and nutrient-rich muddy bottoms.

Sweet Pepper-bush (Clethra alnifolia)

Woodland depressions form damp shady habitat for life forms with those preferences like Sweet Pepper-bush, a shrub whose fragrance you're likely to detect in flower before you see it.

Catkins flowering on a branch of Speckled Alder (Alnus incana)

with Common Reed (Phragmites australis) in the background

Shallow standing water sites encourage Speckled Alder shrubs as well as the rampantly invasive Phragmites reed.

Pom-pom Peat Moss (Sphagnum wulfianum)

Occasionally poorly drained acidic conditions in a hollow pocket create conditions for development of a bog. Only a limited number of plants thrive here, in part because organic decay is inhibited and nutrients are not released to favor general growth. Sphagnum mosses do succeed in this environment and over time their remains contribute layers of peat.

Large Cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon)

Cranberries notably colonize certain boggy locations.

Mink (Mustela vison)

One of the apex creatures of the Halibut Point wetlands is the Mink, an excellent swimmer and, like other members of the weasel family, an adept hunter of almost anything that moves in ponds and crevices.