Wildlife Finds A Backyard Haven On Great Ring Road

By Jeff White

On this particular afternoon, the day after a rainy Sunday, two and a half acres of forest spill down from Ron and Lorrie Jones’ home in a damp hush. Sprightly ferns and wintergreen sprigs sprout between red oaks and black beech. Fallen trees stay where they lie. Through the sylvan tangle, a neat, manmade trail peppered with wood chips meanders and holds a deer’s footprints.

Order amid chaos.

Mr and Mrs Jones like it that way. They walk along the path they have built with their daughter, Amy. They survey their wooded world. Mrs Jones bends down to put her nose to a fern.

“You can really smell the ferns,” she says, pausing to savor.

You can really smell a lot of things in this natural environment the Joneses have created behind their Great Ring Road home. There is the smell of swamp, of sodden ground, of dense thickets of foliage. Mostly, you smell the earthen scent of a natural habitat.

According to the National Wildlife Federation, it is just that.

The Joneses’ property has been recognized as an official National Wildlife Federation Backyard Wildlife Habitat site, and they have joined more than 25,000 property owners throughout the United States and Canada who have opened their homes to the wonders of the forest. Wildlife is free to roam around and take refuge here; flowers are allowed to grow, wilt, and then regenerate themselves; trees planted 20 years ago now offer cool shade and a nesting spot for skittering sparrows.

And signs declaring their property as a natural habitat let visitors know this is a special place.

Mr and Mrs Jones say they have a trip to Florida to thank for all this.

During a March vacation, they had the chance to wander through Blowing Rocks Nature Conservatory in Hobbie Sound. The peace and simplicity of the surroundings were enough for them to conclude that they needed to bring a thin veneer of Blowing Rocks to Newtown.

They got right to work upon their return.

The Joneses were not thinking about gaining a Backyard Wildlife Habitat distinction when they set out to clear some of their property’s forest. They established a thin walking path, cleared out some particularly dense areas, and drained some of a small swamp to form a pond that now is home to two ducks, three goldfish, and a score of tadpoles.

Eight feeders rise, dangle, and sway at different spots around the property. Breakfast for the Joneses includes spreading a generous helping of cracked corn, bread, sunflower seeds, and apples across a large, mesa-like feeding table just beyond their back deck. More seed is spread across the craggy rocks in their back yard, and any feeder that is hanging gets replenished.

Allowing ample natural feeding opportunities along with the food they provide has made Mr and Mrs Jones’ back yard something of a favorite destination for deer, woodchucks, raccoons, and opossums. And they have a name for each one: Rusty Raccoon, Chuck the Woodchuck, Oppie the Possum.

Red bellied chickadees, nuthatches, finches, and mourning doves are quiet today, but the Joneses say their songs can often be heard bursting from a dense thicket of trees off to the trail’s side, where they join a chorus of 35 different species of birds.

 Coming to think of their property as a wildlife and natural refuge has helped Ron and Lorrie Jones make some choices. They think about how they care for their yard, they consider the adverse affects using fertilizers and pesticides has on their part-time residents. Mrs Jones knows how frustrating it is when a deer gobbles one of her favorite plants. But she does not put up a fence to thwart it.

“I don’t like it when deer eat my $15 new shrub,” she says. “But I’m learning to find things they don’t want to eat.”

It is this kind of consideration that dictates the Joneses’ decision to let rotting tree trunks remain on the forest’s floor; to let some plants and shrubs overgrow; to allow for spaces to be created under rocks. All of these choices were made with animals in mind.

Now retired, Mr Jones, a former engineer with Pitney Bowes, has all the time he wants to improve and maintain this natural observatory he and his wife have built. It has been a labor of love. “I have nothing to do all day but build bridges,” he muses.

Having already built one bridge over the brackish water of their little pond, Mr Jones says he wants to extend the walking track a little farther, to give wanderers a full circle to tread. “It’s an education,” he says of the work he has done with his wife. “It sharpened our senses. You learn to appreciate nature.”

“Everything has a purpose,” his wife quietly adds.

Ron and Lorrie Jones say the educational opportunities provided by small-scale conservation are accessible to anyone with a “decent piece of property in Newtown.” Truth be told, little efforts like the one the Joneses have made might help cradle Newtown’s fragile natural resources.

“I would encourage it, because the animals in this area are hurting,” says Mr Jones. Mr and Mrs Jones cite the growing development across town as the primary threat to its own wild places.

Although no new homes are going up at their end of Great Ring Road, the modern world zooms by in SUVs and minivans along the pavement a scant 50 yards from their wooded sanctuary. In the distance, the din of lawnmowers and bouncing basketballs can be heard.

Chaos amid order.

They might be concerned, but the Joneses are happy down here, walking their trail, looking for their goldfish. Sometimes there are moments devoid of outside noise. “You can hear so many different sounds,” says Mrs Jones, smiling. “You can forget everything else and take a deep breath.”