Chris Schipper

PHOTOS: Bristow Park Hit By Vandals

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Vandals hit an increasingly popular park in New Canaan this past weekend, officials say. The ruts of dirt bikes could be seen in multiple places of new trails in Bristow Park, according to Conservation Commission Chair Chris Schipper, who has led a town-supported revitalization of the Old Stamford Road wooded area for the last several years. Fieldstones were toppled from a bridge, a bird seed donation collection box was broken open, graffiti was sprayed on structures and signs were destroyed in the park, Schipper said. The vandalism first was reported Friday afternoon, he said. 

“Of course it’s disappointing that a few sophomoric individuals ruin the park experience for us all,” he said in an email. The historic bird sanctuary and wildwood preserve is on track to mark its centennial in 2024. 

The town in recent years has worked with the local Friends of Bristow Park group to plan and carry out a number of projects in the long-neglected park.

Around Town

‘Stuff Has Been Moving’: New Canaan Swap Shop Officially Launches at Transfer Station

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The organizers of the New Canaan Swap Shop say a name like ‘Take It or Leave It’ may have fit the facility better, since the Transfer Station passholders who can use it are free to either drop off items as donations, pick up free stuff or both. But the “Swap Shop” name has stuck and, since an official opening last week that followed a soft launch around Thanksgiving, “stuff has been moving,” according to Robin Bates Mason, president of Planet New Canaan. “Sometimes when stuff comes in, it goes out right away,” Bates Mason said on Wednesday morning as she and fellow volunteers arranged items for the Swap Shop’s operating hours of 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. “We had someone bring in a big bag of PlayStation games. One guy brought in a year-old flatscreen TV and literally 20 minutes later it was out the door.

Andrew Yuang

NCHS Science Team ID’s High Phosphorus Levels in Bristow

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Members of the New Canaan High School Science Team identified unusually high levels of phosphorus in Bristow Bird Sanctuary based on samples collected this past summer, according to a presentation the students gave last week. Natural levels of the chemical element should come in around .1 mg/L for streams with no reservoirs, yet tests conducted by a lab in June following a sample at Bristow came back at more than six times that amount, according to Andrew Yuang, a NCHS student who joined Science Team Co-Captain Kira Titova at the Dec. 8 Conservation Commission meeting, held in Town Hall and via videoconference. 

Asked by Commission Chair what negative impact of high phosphorus could be, Yuang said that, similarly to nitrogen, high phosphorus that comes into a waterway—typically, from fertilizer—could lead to an overgrowth in algae which, in turn, reduces the amount of dissolved oxygen that aquatic life needs to breathe, an environmental condition called hypoxia. Schipper said, “It makes sense we are doing this test, because we are concerned about what is happening in our freshwater streams and ponds, but we’re also concerned about the downstream effect on Long Island Sound, and I would say i’m not surprised that there might be a very high reading because, as a regular visitor to Bristow and Bristow Pond, I’ve noticed the pond is often so heavy with plant life it feels like a snapping turtle could walk across the top of it, as opposed to swim underneath it. And so we actually have that kind of Petri dish of plant growth that you can see going up high and then fall off—it helps that the stream continually flushes water through there.

Bristow Bird Sanctuary

Officials Push for Improved Walkway from Mead Park to Bristow Bird Sanctuary

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Town officials are pushing for improvements to a walking trail for one pedestrian entrance to an increasingly popular bird sanctuary in New Canaan. 

As it is the heavy pebble walkway leading from the parking lot at Mead Park’s little league baseball fields to the Bristow Bird Sanctuary is “not easy to push a stroller across” and “difficult for older people to walk across,” according to Conservation Commission Chair Chris Schipper. “If this is going to be part of our greenlink that will connect Waveny to Mead and Irwin and the Nature Center and that whole link, that pieces needs to be improved as will other pieces, but I would love to see that improved,” Schipper told members of the Parks & Recreation Commission during their July 13 meeting, held at Lapham Community Center. “It’s always been a back way into the park, but it’s never been very attractive from a park design standpoint. And I think working on that trail at some point would be a big plus.”

The comments came during a general update on Bristow from Schipper, who has spearheaded efforts in recent years to restore what had been a largely forgotten bird sanctuary and wildwood preservation ahead of its centennial in 2024. Parks & Recreation Director John Howe said he agreed with Schipper’s assessment.

Allyson Halm

Reports of ‘Aggressive Deer’ Prompt Temporary Closure of Greenlink Trail Near Irwin Park

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Officials from the New Canaan Land Trust say they’re taking steps to widen a walking trail near Irwin Park, after deer who had funneled into a narrow portion of it reportedly “attacked” several people last week. Conceived about one decade ago as part of the town’s expanding “greenlink,” the trail allows Irwin visitors who continue north along a sidewalk on Weed Street to walk through the woods and into the back of the New Canaan Nature Center property. 

Yet screening planting for neighbors of the trail has encroached on the accessway through the area, creating a stretch of very narrow passage where, last Thursday, at least one of two deer appeared to have panicked when confronted by people walking the trail, according to Animal Control Officer Allyson Halm. “It sounds to me like the deer was trapped and panicked,” Halm said. Police received seven reports of confrontations between the panic-stricken deer and walkers trying to pass, including one case where the doe got up on her hind legs and pommelled a woman with her hooves, causing bruises, Halm said. Halm said when she went to the area Thursday to investigate, she saw a doe and a younger deer, perhaps one year old, and added that there may have been a fawn in the area that she didn’t see, though the newborn deer was not on the narrow trail itself.