Welcome to Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge. The Parson Point Trail is one mile round trip and provides the opportunity for visitors to see many kinds of plants and animals - maybe even a bald eagle! Isolated forested areas with tall, mature trees are key requirements for nest-building eagles. Bombay Hook Refuge provides habitat for a large variety of plants and animals that might not exist here if this habitat was not protected from development.

1. This is a very unusual sweetgum tree due to its extremely winged or corked bark. In this part of the United States, sweetgum (Liguidambar styraciflua) trees usually appear in the first stage of succession, when abandoned fields give way to sun-loving species. Sweetgums are large, aromatic trees with shiny, star-shaped, dark green leaves with saw-toothed edges. The spiny sweetgum fruits, sometimes called "monkey balls" are also an identifying characteristic. Sweetgums are used for making perfumes, medicines, chewing gum, popsicle sticks, furniture veneers and peach baskets. Unfortunately, the wildlife value of sweetgum trees is quite limited when compared to other hardwoods such as oak, beech, and hickory.

2. A small pond is visible through the trees on your right. During warm weather, painted turtles often bask in the sun around the pond. These common residents of Bombay Hook Refuge spend most of their time in or near water eating plants, insects, and other small animals. Painted turtles are easy to identify by their broad, dark, flattened, smooth-edged shells, which are trimmed with red. They are very shy and easily disturbed. Female turtles lay 6 to 12 eggs in a hole dug with their hind legs. Bald eagles will occasionally prey on painted turtles.

The pond is a roosting area for black-crowned night herons, and is home to green frogs and bull frogs.

During the warmer months, especially June, turtles dig holes into the trail. The northern diamondback terrapin, a brackish/saltwater species, lays oblong, pinkish eggs. Often these eggs are found by raccoons or opossums, which regard them as a cherished treat.

Because diamondback terrapin meat was a highly prized delicacy around 1900, their numbers were greatly reduced. Today, laws which protect these turtles have helped restore some populations. Adults are often seen basking on the mud flats. Terrapin diet consists of marine snails, clams and worms.

The snapping turtle, a found in fresh and salt water, can be identified by its massive head and powerful jaw. The back end of the carapace, or top shell, is serrated, as is the tail. Snapping turtles mate from April to November and lay as many a 83 spherical eggs.

4. Shearness Pool is visible through the trees on your left. The spur trail bending to the left of the main trail will take you to the Pool. Shearness Pool is frequently visited by mallards, pintails, black ducks, Canada geese, and snow geese.

Wetlands are important to waterfowl as breeding, migrating, and wintering habitat. In recent years though, much waterfowl habitat has been lost to agriculture, industry and urban development. To help better protect and manage wetlands, the United States and Canada signed the North American Waterfowl Management Plan in 1986. This plan sets numerical goals for duck, goose, and swan populations, identifies habitat conservation needs, and recommends measures for resolving problems.

The Federal Duck Stamp Program helps preserve wetlands through funds collected by the sale of Duck Stamps to hunters, conservationists, and stamp collectors. The funds are then used to acquire waterfowl habitat for the National Wildlife Refuge System. Bombay Hook and many other refuges were purchased entirely by Duck Stamp receipts.

5. Jack-in-the-pulpit blooms from March through June in rich, moist woods. Other common names for this pretty flower are Indian turnip, wake robin, dragonroot, starch plant, memory root, wild turnip, and American arum. The plants grow one to three feet tall. Flowers are unisexual (having both sexes), with male parts on top of the plant and female parts below. Jack-in-the-pulpit flowers can be identified by the hood that arches over the rest of the plant. The upper part is green or purplish brown and is often striped. One or two leaves are divided into three to five leaflets. Berries are bright red and hang in clusters in the fall. If the root is dried and boiled, it can be used to make flour. The leaves and fruit are eaten by ring-necked pheasants and wild turkeys at Bombay Hook.

Other spring wildflowers you may see along the trail are may-apple, toothwort, spring beauty, bloodroot, wild strawberry, and violets. Please remember that collecting any plants is prohibited. Leave them there for the next visitor to enjoy.

6. Ferns are non-flowering plants that reproduce by spores rather than seeds. Lady ferns and New York ferns are most common along this trail, but sensitive and royal ferns also grow here. Royal ferns grow to a height of two feet or more and can look like young locust trees. The foliage is translucent pale green in a well-lit area, and bright green with reddish stalks where light is less intense. Size and shape or this fern depends on its environment.

7. An intense storm overturned and uprooted this tree, creating potential habitat for the five-lined skink. This interesting reptile prefers a brush pile or the root system of a tree as a place to search for and capture food. If yo are very quiet, you may see a skink at work.

Look up in the trees for a moment, and you may spot some of the birds that make their home at Bombay Hook Refuge. Species often seen along the Parson Point Trail are red-bellied woodpeckers, flickers and warblers.

8. As you near the end of the trail, Phragmites plants will become more noticeable. Phragmites, introduced from Eurasia, grows where marshes have been disturbed by man. The plant has no food value for wildlife and competes with millets, sedges, and other plants which are a valuable source of wildlife food and shelter. Refuge managers are currently controlling the spread of Phragmites by manipulating water levels and by selective herbicide spraying. The plant is sprayed in late summer and burned in the winter months to destroy the old canes and allow more valuable wildlife food plants to thrive.

Beyond the Phragmites is the back side of Shearness Pool, where ducks may be seen most of the year. If you look closely, you may see a wood duck box in the marsh. These nest boxes have been strategically placed around the Refuge to increase the number of wood ducks nesting here.

Shearness Pool serves as a roosting and nesting area for bald eagles, which feed mainly on fish. Eagles build or repair their nest in December or January, and mate and lay eggs in February. Both males and females sit on the nest, taking turns incubating the eggs while the other is off hunting. Young eaglets are hatched in March and fledge by June. Because eagles are very shy and easily disturbed, Refuge managers seasonally close the Parson Point Trail. Please do your part by not entering the trail when it's closed. Enjoy our walk with nature and come again.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Bombay Hook is one of more than 500 refuges in the National Wildlife Refuge System administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The National Wildlife Refuge System is a network of lands and waters managed specifically for the protection of wildlife and wildlife habitat and represents the most comprehensive wildlife management program in the world. Units of the system stretch across the United States from northern Alaska to the Florida Keys and include small islands in the Caribbean and South Pacific. The character of the refuges is a diverse as the nation itself.

The Service also manages National Fish Hatcheries, and provides Federal leadership in habitat protection, fish and wildlife research, technical assistance and the conservation and protection of migratory birds, certain marine mammals and threatened and endangered species.