Comte Easement

Property Access

This approximately 134 acre parcel of land in Nottingham is owned by the Comte family. The Comte property is located on Cooper Hill Road, with public access from Route 4 in Nottingham. The conservation easement is held by Bear Paw Regional Greenways.

Property Information

The property is one of the highest points in Nottingham and is in the uppermost reaches of the Little River watershed. Most of this section of the watershed is a large unfragmented block approximately 11 square miles in size. Other conservation efforts in the area include the abutting 20 acre Bock conservation easement and ongoing projects in Barrington. The long term conservation goals for this entire area are to connect it to the 1,800 acre Samuel A. Tamposi Water Supply Reserve (SATWaSR) in Barrington.

Approximately 15 acres of the parcel is field land. Here the soils are rated prime based on Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) surveys. Much of the field area was restored by the previous owner and used for grazing purposes. The Comte fields have a small resident bobolink population, a species of concern in the state, blue birds, indigo buntings, and a variety of more common species.

The upland portions of the property are entirely wooded. The 93 acres of forest land has been very well managed by the previous owners and has been a certified Tree Farm since 1984. Forest management on the land has been governed by a stewardship plan prepared in 2001, with an emphasis on long term goals. One of the outstanding wildlife features of the forest land is the predominance of hard mast producing red oak and beech. Half the forest land area is in this mixture.

One of the more interesting and unique aspects of this property is a 5 acre black gum dominated wetland. This is technically classified as a black gum/red maple basin swamp. Black gum here is at just about the northern limits of its range. Three black gums on the Comte property were cored and estimated to be 500 years plus by the USDA Forest Service Laboratory in Durham. Two other significant wetlands occupy about 15 acres of the land. One of these is an outstanding emergent wetland that extends onto neighboring properties along the eastern boundary. The other wetland is a recently abandoned beaver flowage.