The Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary, which is one of the

Massachusetts Audubon Society The Massachusetts Audubon Society, commonly known as Mass Audubon, founded in 1896 by Harriet Hemenway and Minna B. Hall and headquartered in Lincoln, Massachusetts, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to "protecting the nature of Massachusetts ...

’s largest wildlife sanctuaries, is located in Topsfield and Wenham, Massachusetts. Much of its landscape was created by a

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...

15,000 years ago.

Features

The sanctuary features more than of interconnected trails wind through forests, meadows, and

swamps A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

vernal pools Vernal pools, also called vernal ponds or ephemeral pools, are seasonal pools of water that provide habitat for distinctive plants and animals. They are considered to be a distinctive type of wetland usually devoid of fish, and thus allow the safe ...

drumlins A drumlin, from the Irish word ''droimnín'' ("littlest ridge"), first recorded in 1833, in the classical sense is an elongated hill in the shape of an inverted spoon or half-buried egg formed by glacial ice acting on underlying unconsolidated ...

, and

esker An esker, eskar, eschar, or os, sometimes called an ''asar'', ''osar'', or ''serpent kame'', is a long, winding ridge of stratified sand and gravel, examples of which occur in glaciated and formerly glaciated regions of Europe and North Amer ...

s. The Rockery Trail runs beside large rocks, exotic trees, and shrubs that belonged to an

arboretum An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, man ...

at Bradstreet Farm, parts of which were donated by owner Thomas Emerson Proctor. The

Ipswich River Ipswich River is a small river in northeastern Massachusetts, United States. It held significant importance in early colonial migrations inland from the ocean port of Ipswich. The river provided safe harborage at offshore Plum Island Sound to ea ...

runs for through the sanctuary, and Mass Audubon makes canoes available for members to rent. The Sanctuary also offers summer camps and various nature programs for children and adults. There are donated benches scattered throughout the Sanctuary, one perched high on the South Esker Trail with wonderful views of birds on the water below. This bench was donated by Kathy Field and Alan Levites, both now deceased. The bench features an inscribed quote on the back: “It’s the end of all strain, It’s the joy in your heart,” attributed to

Antonio Carlos Jobim Antonio is a masculine given name of Etruscan origin deriving from the root name Antonius. It is a common name among Romance language-speaking populations as well as the Balkans and Lusophone Africa. It has been among the top 400 most popular male ...

. Nearby, one can feed chickadees, white breasted nuthatches and other birds by hand.

History

Thomas Emerson Proctor (1873–1949), a leather fortune heir, lived in the house of Captain Dudley Bradstreet (1765–1833) (currently the Audubon Visitor Center). He owned large pieces of land in Topsfield and other estates in the area.Gordon Harris, "An autumn walk in the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary," https://historicipswich.org/2015/11/01/a-walk-in-the-ipswich-river-wildlife-sanctuary/ Sources disagree about whether the sanctuary was bequeathed to the Massachusetts Audubon Society in Proctor's will or purchased by Mass Audubon using funds bequeathed by Annie Brown. The sanctuary was originally named the "Proctor Wildlife Sanctuary and Annie H. Brown Reservation".

References

External links

Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary
- Mass Audubon Protected areas of Essex County, Massachusetts Wildlife refuges in Massachusetts Nature centers in Massachusetts Massachusetts Audubon Society {{EssexCountyMA-geo-stub