Pioneering the Watery Niche

A century ago our present-day quarry pond was a dry and sterile industrial site on Halibut Point that produced stone blocks for the Rockport Granite Company.

The Babson Farm Quarry
Courtesy of the Cape Ann Museum

As soon as operations ceased the quarry filled with infiltrating ground water. The water immediately began to support organic life that has unceasingly become more diverse and sophisticated.

Gerris sp., Water Strider

Small creatures borne on the wind came to populate the pond.

Rheumatobates vegatus, a Water Strider devouring an aphid

Some of them adapted to a simple habitat on the surface of the water.

Newborn dragonflies clinging to vegetation

Wind and erosion aided further processes of siltation and seed dissemination that eventually supported plant growth on shallow-water shelves around the quarry rim.

Viola lanceolata - White Bog Violet

The arrival of Cattails contributed to the formation of muddy soils where expanding varieties of plants could take hold.

Lythrum salicaria - Purple Loosestrife with cattails

Its network of roots held a compost of minerals and humus that accelerated the density and diversity of an ecological community.

Common Grackle

Increasing varieties of birds have taken advantage of the niche's food production.

Painted Turtle

Some reptiles have crawled considerable distances on the chance of finding new habitat.

The beaver lodge

A roaming solitary beaver added on to the foothold of habitable space at the quarry.

Minnows

Somehow little fish have managed to establish here, devouring and being devoured in the chain of life.

Red-necked Grebe by the beaver lodge

They sustained this diving fish-catcher during a late-winter stay when the ice melted on the quarry surface.

36-inch eel

Perhaps the most remarkable immigrant story of all is that of the American Eel, born thousands of miles away in the Sargasso Sea, finding its way as a diminutive elver up a damp swale, through a seepage channel under the perimeter road, to grow into maturity in the cattail stand of the quarry pond.

Iris versicolor - Larger Blue Flag

New biologic forms of every description with the right adaptive qualities await the pathways of fortune that will eventually allow them to pioneer their own opportunity in this watery niche.