The rain has finally subsided and the water has dropped throughout the forest, which is good, considering the usually tranquil (read “usually dry”) Spooky Brook was sporting some class 4 rapids early this morning.

The trail that runs through Hutcheson Memorial Forest had turned into a creek-bed, with up to a foot of water in some places. Across the forest floor were rivulets in every direction, leaving only small islands of land unflooded. Lucky for me, these were the places where most of the birds congregated to feed out of the wind. On my morning “dog walk” there were Palm and Pine warblers, Eastern Phoebes, Field Sparrows,  Hermit Thrushes, Bluebirds, Titmice and Chickadees; along with some winter leftovers such as White-throated Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos, and Brown Creepers. The place was teeming with birdlife!  

Later this afternoon Inga and I took Tess for a walk to view the damage/extent of flooding both on the HMF property, as well as in adjacent East Millstone. When we arrived at the bridge in East Millstone we were totally surprised to see that the river had breached the canal bank and totally flooded the west end of town. The canal house was under water, and the used bookstore had water just below the front door.

Here’s a shot from  Amwell Rd, just east of the bridge over the D&R canal and Millstone river. We had hoped to be able to cross over the bridge to see the other side (Hillsborough), but when we arrived the bridge already had a steady flow of water rushing across. We then walked through E. Millstone to Canal Rd. which we had heard was already flooded, to check it out. It only took a minute’s walk down Canal road before we hit the water. It was completely flooded! Canal Road was now just “Canal” (to paraphrase Maria Stanko, another caretaker who lives on Canal Rd.). At this point the wind was howling and Inga made a plea for our return home. We’re constantly worried about the possible wind damage on the old growth trees in the forest, as the soil is shallow and has very poor drainage which allows for frequent blowdowns. The walk home was pleasant, and returning through the forest we were pleased to see that the water level had dropped, although we did encounter several parts of two bridges that had been washed out during the night. Here’s Inga standing on the old supports of one bridge. You can see the remaining section on the far bank…the other four sections were at various locations down the creek. Oh well, there’s a project for us over the next few weeks. In the meantime we’ll keep our fingers crossed that the winds die down and the trees remain standing. The bird feeders are less active now which suggests that the storm effects are waning. I guess it’s time for me to stop playing in the rain and get some work done. More photos of the “2007 Flood” can be found on my flickr site, as well as Inga’s.