Thompson Pond in

Pine Plains, New York Pine Plains is a town in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The population was 2,218 at the 2020 census. The name is derived from the geographic character of the region. The hamlet of Pine Plains is on the northern border of the county. ...

is a 15,000-year-old

glacial A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate betw ...

kettle pond A kettle (also known as a kettle lake, kettle hole, or pothole) is a depression/hole in an outwash plain formed by retreating glaciers or draining floodwaters. The kettles are formed as a result of blocks of dead ice left behind by retreating gla ...

at the foot of Stissing Mountain. It is the

source Source may refer to: Research * Historical document * Historical source * Source (intelligence) or sub source, typically a confidential provider of non open-source intelligence * Source (journalism), a person, publication, publishing institute o ...

Wappinger Creek Wappinger Creek is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed October 3, 2011 creek which runs from Thompson Pond to the Hudson River at New Hamburg in Dutchess County, New York, ...

, a

tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainage ...

of the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

that drains much of

Dutchess County Dutchess County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 295,911. The county seat is the city of Poughkeepsie. The county was created in 1683, one of New York's first twelve counties, and later organ ...

. The pond and mountain are part of a nature preserve managed by

The Nature Conservancy The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. it works via affiliates or branches in 79 countries and territories, as well as across every state in the US. Founded in 1951, The Natu ...

.Nature Conservancy site
/ref> The pond was designated a

National Natural Landmark The National Natural Landmarks (NNL) Program recognizes and encourages the conservation of outstanding examples of the natural history of the United States. It is the only national natural areas program that identifies and recognizes the best ...

in May 1973 for its

calcareous Calcareous () is an adjective meaning "mostly or partly composed of calcium carbonate", in other words, containing lime or being chalky. The term is used in a wide variety of scientific disciplines. In zoology ''Calcareous'' is used as an adje ...

bog, unlike the more common acidic bogs in the Northeast.

History

Thompson Pond and two other nearby bodies of water, Stissing Lake, and Twin Island Lake, were all originally connected, but separated over time. The pond is supposedly named for Amos Thompson who settled in the area around 1746.Rootsweb essay
/ref> Thompson pond and Stissing Mountain were the inspiration for the New York State Environment displays in the Warburg Memorial Hall at the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...

built in 1951. In 1958 the Executive Secretary of the Conservancy, Elting Arnold, convinced

Briarcliff Farms Briarcliff Farms was a farm established in 1890 by Walter William Law in Briarcliff Manor, a village in Westchester County, New York. One of several enterprises established by Law at the turn of the 20th century, the farm was known for its mi ...

to sell the land to the Conservancy for $20,000 which was raised from public donations.

Visiting

The preserve is open dawn to dusk, every day of the year for passive recreational and educational use. There are hiking trails around the pond and one that goes to the top of Stissing Mountain. There is a

firetower A fire lookout tower, fire tower or lookout tower, provides housing and protection for a person known as a "fire lookout" whose duty it is to search for wildfires in the wilderness. It is a small building, usually on the summit of a mountain or ...

at the summit that is open to the public.http://stissingfiretower.org/
/ref>

Plants and wildlife

There are more than 387 species of plants in the preserve including pipewort,

round-leaved sundew ''Drosera rotundifolia'', the round-leaved sundew, roundleaf sundew, or common sundew, is a carnivorous species of flowering plant that grows in bogs, marshes and fens. One of the most widespread sundew species, it has a circumboreal distribution ...

, St. Johnswort and

cattails ''Typha'' is a genus of about 30 species of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Typhaceae. These plants have a variety of common names, in British English as bulrush or reedmace, in American English as reed, cattail, or punks, in ...

. The surrounding woods include

oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

sugar maple ''Acer saccharum'', the sugar maple, is a species of flowering plant in the soapberry and lychee family Sapindaceae. It is native to the hardwood forests of eastern Canada and eastern United States. Sugar maple is best known for being the prima ...

ash Ash or ashes are the solid remnants of fires. Specifically, ''ash'' refers to all non-aqueous, non- gaseous residues that remain after something burns. In analytical chemistry, to analyse the mineral and metal content of chemical samples, ash ...

, hemlock and

hickory Hickory is a common name for trees composing the genus ''Carya'', which includes around 18 species. Five or six species are native to China, Indochina, and India (Assam), as many as twelve are native to the United States, four are found in Mexi ...

trees. The preserve is part of the migratory flyway, over 162 bird species have been spotted here. There are also 27 types of mammals identified in the preserve.

References

External links

Nature Conservancy Official Site
{{authority control Ponds of New York (state) National Natural Landmarks in New York (state) Nature Conservancy preserves in New York (state) Protected areas of Dutchess County, New York Bodies of water of Dutchess County, New York

History

Visiting

Plants and wildlife

See also

References

External links