Barrett Street Marsh Conservation Area

Image 1: Aerial view of Barrett St. Marsh taken by Allison Bell. The image shows a suburban landscape with a mixture of dense green forests, commercial properties, and residential neighborhoods.
Image 2: A photograph of a pond in the Barrett Street Marsh. Long grass weeds rise above the water. Surrounding the pond is forested area. Image 3: Another aerial shot of the area from Google Earth. Near the center of the image, a large, irregularly shaped open wetland or clearing of brown and green vegetation is outlined by a bright green, dashed border. To the right of this outlined area is a major commercial corridor featuring large retail buildings, vast asphalt parking lots with parked cars, and a main roadway running vertically. Surrounding the commercial zone and the outlined area are thick patches of mature green trees, interspersed with residential streets and houses. A set of train tracks runs vertically along the far right side of the frame, and a scale indicator reading "967 ft" is visible in the bottom-left corner.

This 25-acre conservation area was acquired by the town of Northampton in 1825. It was then part of a larger property that was purchased for the town’s Alms House and its farm, which supported the residents. When the Alms House was operating (1825–1920), the land that now forms the conservation area was used for pasture and hay. After the Alms House closed, this part of the property was transferred to the city’s Department of Public Works, which, until the 1960s, maintained the drainage ditches and leased the land to local farmers for hay. Wetland protection laws in the 1960s ended the ditching, and by the early 1970s, the former pasture and hay land had become a rejuvenated marsh. In 1975, the Department of Public Works transferred the management of the wetland to the city’s Conservation Commission.

For a more complete understanding of the human and natural history of this conservation area, click here.

Wildlife Camera Footage from Barrett Street Marsh

Life at the Torn Trunk, Winter 2025

In spite of being less than a mile from Interstate 91, the Barrett Street Marsh is a remarkably important place for wildlife–a green oasis where some animal species live year round and many others pass through. During the last four years the fallen cherry tree trunk has lost all of its bark and this summer, this section was torn apart by a mother bear. This clip documents the importance of fallen, decaying logs and the value of even small patches of wildness for local wildlife.

The Other End of the Fallen Tree, May – July 2025

This video captures wildlife activity at a fallen trunk. To put this video in its historical context: from 1825 to the early 1970s, in Massachusetts, many of the animals in this video–deer, bobcat, porcupine, bear and pileated woodpecker –were exceedingly rare (due to habitat changes and overhunting) and opossums and coyotes hadn’t yet arrived in the state. Short version: lotsa changes during the last 200 years!

May in the Barrett Street Marsh, 2025

Here’s a 1.5 minute compilation from a camera located in a slightly higher patch of land, with the marsh in the background. Red maple dominates the canopy, while the understory includes an increasing and alarming amount of glossy buckthorn (a big change during the last decade).

Three Months in Three Minutes, Jan. – Apr. 2022

3 months in 3 minutes….and holy smokes, what a lot of activity–especially at night! Predators, prey, predators with prey…and more. In addition to behaviors, what this short video highlights is the value that wetlands play for wildlife –even relatively small areas like this 25-acre conservation area, which is surrounded by commercial and residential development and has been ditched, dredged, filled, and manipulated by people for at least 200 years.

See our Youtube channel playlist “Wildlife in Wilder Places” for more wildlife content at Barrett Street Marsh.