Every fall, Jennifer Berne watches the light shift through the woods as rust-colored leaves cover the forest floor around her Westfall Road home, where she writes children’s books.
“It’s like nature’s choreography,” Berne said of the forest. “It changes shape, it changes color.”
The unpaved, dead-end road off County Route 7 in Ancram has about eight houses, including a hunting cabin, amid a forest of aspen, birch, maple, and oak trees. Berne moved there about 25 years ago, after a career in advertising in New York City. She often wondered if developers would some day start adding more houses and spoil the slow, quiet lifestyle she enjoyed.
In 2017, her concern was put to rest when the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation bought land adjacent to her property and turned it into the Doodletown Wildlife Management Area, named after Doodletown Road, which runs along the forest. After a second DEC purchase two years later, Doodletown covers 1,078 acres in parts of Ancram, Gallatin, and Taghkanic.
In the fall, the still forest stirs with soft rustling as hikers, hunters, bird-watchers, mushroom foragers, and leaf peepers explore the woods.
As a former DEC wildlife biologist and land manager, Stacy Preusser spent countless hours working on the ground in Doodletown’s vast forest, removing invasive plants like barberry, buckthorn, and autumn olive that can take over the soil and crowd out native vegetation.
She recalled how much she enjoyed “listening to the woods wake up” on early morning workdays.
“It’s a very calming place to be because it’s naturally a very quiet area,” Preusser said. “When you’re out there in the fall, you get that earthy smell from the leaves and the moist soil decomposing in the leaf litter. That’s always amazing. There’s dragonflies moving through, you can see them sparkle through the woods.”
There are no full-time staff working at Doodletown, but foresters and officials like Preusser help maintain the area by removing invasives and cutting patches of large, mature trees from time to time. This allows sunlight to reach the forest floor, helping shrubs and saplings grow. The DEC uses hunting permits to help control deer overpopulation, as they often overbrowse these young plants essential for wildlife like ruffed grouse and rabbits.
Fall is also a good time to find mushrooms, Preusser said, as they grow on damp, decaying wood. She has found oyster, chicken of the woods, and hen of the woods there. In the spring, she enjoyed cooling off near vernal pools during long hikes, and hearing the whistling calls of spring peepers.
Farther in, visitors may also come across old stone walls, evidence that people once farmed the land, and massive oak trees that Preusser said were likely used to demarcate property lines.
Preusser, who has gone on two hunting trips in Doodletown, said finding such spots can take some effort, because the area does not have any designated trails. The area is meant, primarily, she said, to provide a free and publicly accessible space to hunt. Early bowhunting season for deer began on Oct. 1 and runs through Nov. 20, followed by the regular season. Hunters can check seasons and regulations for black bear and small game on the DEC website.
“Some people will go there and expect to find picnic tables, pavilions, manicured lawns, and well-done trails,” DEC’s Regional Wildlife Manager Mike Clark said. “These properties are really there for wildlife dependent recreation, wildlife habitat protection, and wildlife habitat creation and enhancement.”
Unlike state parks, Doodletown is wild, forest land. There are parking areas off County Route 27, Allen Road, Doodletown Road and Sheppards Road. Kiosks list DEC phone numbers and a 24-hour dispatch line for emergencies.
Marian Sole, who moved to Westfall Road in 2017, is an avid birder, and has seen 60 species, including a variety of warblers near her home. “It’s probably one of the best places to go birding in Columbia County,” Sole said.
“It’s easy enough to find yourself following what’s probably a deer trail, and then you realize that you’re in the middle of nothing,” Sole said. “Hunters, I don’t think they mind, they’ve got the equipment on them. They know where they are and how to get back. But your average hiker could possibly get a bit lost in there.”
The state bought and maintains the land using funds collected from federal excise tax on firearms, ammunition, and hunting equipment. Those funds also help the DEC track the population of the declining New England cottontails, the region’s only native rabbit species. Hunting may actually help them survive, Clark said, by keeping the nearly identical eastern cottontails from taking over the habitat’s resources. Hunters can also send the DEC rabbit heads so that experts can use the skulls to identify the species.
“Hunters are by far some of the biggest conservationists out there,” Clark said. “I think that’s one of the biggest misconceptions that hunters don’t care and just want to kill things.”
Several area residents said that many hunters come to Doodletown from neighboring states like Connecticut and Massachusetts, which have less public land to hunt than New York. Jim Stickle, who grew up in Ancram, has hunted there for about five years. He waits a couple of weeks after the season opens when fewer hunters are around and the woods feel safer.
Stickle spends hours in the forest, often starting at the Doodletown Road access. About a quarter mile in, he said, there is a large swamp where deer often hide. He also enjoys hiking through the stretch by Westfall Road where creeks run through the woods and a climb up the hill is rewarded with scenic views.
The DEC acquired the first 690 acres, next to Berne’s property, from an anonymous seller for $2.8 million, then another 388 acres to the south from a private landowner for $1.9 million. The Columbia Land Conservancy, a nonprofit organization, helped by connecting the DEC with “conservation buyers,” private individuals who purchase land and hold it until the state can procure it.
“When important conservation land comes on the market, there’s a ticking clock for purchasing it before it’s snapped up for development,” Rebecca Walker, the conservancy’s senior director of marketing and communications, said in an email.
Berne said she and her husband, Nick Nickerson, used to walk in the woods when they were younger, but now stick to Westfall Road and the lawn on their 18-acre property. They plan to move to a retirement community in a few years, Berne said, but she’s happy the woods will stay the same.
Preusser, too, is still drawn by the woods, even after leaving the DEC.
“It’s almost a little bit neater in the aspect where there’s no path, so you’re kind of making your own path for a lot of it,” Preusser said. “There’s always something new to see through there.”