2009 Document Due for an Update

by Jeremy Withnell

Here in Norfolk we are lucky to be surrounded by an enormous amount of natural resources. To even begin to document the many denizens of our woods and waters would take a similarly enormous effort. Fortunately, that work has already been done, in the form of the Norfolk Natural Resources Inventory (NRI), published 11 years ago in 2009. According to John Anderson of the town Conservation Commission, it is time for an update, and one will be arriving soon, perhaps as early as next spring.

The NRI is an extremely detailed yet compelling and readable document, 128 pages long. Over 40 individuals are cited as contributors. Geography and geology, weather, soils, aquatics, plantscape, wildlife, open space, historic and scenic resources, and areas of ecological importance are all addressed in individual chapters. Additionally, there is a chapter devoted to recommendations that residents, business owners and town government can consult when making decisions on how to interact with our natural surroundings.

Though it may seem that, beyond the ebb and flow of the seasons, our natural world is static, nothing could be further from the truth. Species documented in the past may no longer be present, and some not seen before may have arrived. Shifts in our climate are producing changes in the weather we experience in this region. Anderson notes that there has also been a reclassification of soil types, necessitating a change in terminology used in the NRI even though  we still have the same soil as always. It is for these reasons and many more that a new edition is in the works.

Norfolk, Anderson states, is especially rich in organizations and individuals that work closely with nature, citing Great Mountain Forest, Aton Forest, the Norfolk Land Trust and the Rails to Trails Committee specifically. Many locals are botanists, foresters, geologists and naturalists who came together to provide their expertise to ensure the scientific underpinnings behind the NRI. Anderson credits Sue Frisch with doing much of the work years ago bringing these individuals and their talents to the effort of creating such a rich and varied document.

We who live in Norfolk realize that our town is special, and the NRI demonstrates one of the reasons why. It is widely known that Norfolk is one of the highest towns in elevation in the state, and that its weather is uncommonly cold and snowy by Connecticut standards. The inventory explains how these factors, together with our distance from Long Island Sound, mean that the forest type that surrounds us is mostly northern hardwoods, dominated by beech, yellow birch and sugar maple, with some more boreal species such as red spruce and tamarack mixed in. This contrasts with the rest of Connecticut, which is more firmly planted in the oak-hickory forest type that has a more mid-Atlantic character. With a climate and habitat more akin to that of parts of northern New England, our woods support animal and plant life that has a more northerly feel. Moose have made themselves at home here in the last few decades, and Benedict Pond has supported one of the only known breeding sites of the common loon in the state. Norfolk also boasts black spruce bogs with pitcher plant and Labrador tea, both far more common in the taiga of the Canadian north. 

The picture that the NRI paints is not entirely rosy. The area is replete with invasive animals and plants. Winged euonymus (burning bush) and multiflora rose have been spreading from roadsides and backyards into the woods for many years now. Foreign insects trouble our trees —the emerald ash borer and the hemlock woolly adelgid, to name two. The inventory explains how these invaders affect our natural systems negatively and provide steps that can be undertaken to address the problem.

More than anything, though, the NRI serves as a brilliant companion for those that get out in the nature that we live so closely with in Norfolk. The hard work of the Conservation Commission and the volunteers they have recruited have enabled the average local citizen to become a more knowledgeable rambler of our trails, a more competent steward of the land and a friend to the rooted, scaly or furry life that exists alongside us. The upcoming edition of the NRI is something to anticipate. In the meantime, the 2009 edition can be found at https://norfolkct.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/NorfolkNRI2009.pdf.