A crystalline ice crust had settled over Hidden Pond last week, and the newly planted apple trees and viburnum stood bare of leaves. All of Hampton's Trail Wood had faded to muted grays and browns for the winter.

"It doesn't seem like a lot right now, but come spring, these bushes will provide berries for the birds," said Andy Rzeznikiewicz, land manager for the Connecticut Audubon Society, as he showed off the 52 native shrubs in a newly cleared field at the 168-acre preserve. Planted this fall so the roots would take hold before the ground froze, the chokeberries, flowering crabapple, shadbush and elderberry, along with the viburnum and apple trees, would yield next spring's bounty for the warblers, bluebirds, scarlet tanagers, cedar waxwings and other wildlife that inhabit the property.

"We wanted to improve the habitat to bring more birds here," explained Sarah Heminway, director of northeast corner programs for the society.

The plantings - along with the meadows along the pond and behind the historic house, newly cleared of invasive bittersweet, buckthorn and some trees, then reseeded with native grasses - are part of a project to make one of the least known but nonetheless significant of the society's preserves more visible and even more of a source of pride. A $12,000 grant from the Hollis Declan Leverett Memorial Fund paid for the chainsaws and other equipment for the project, as well as the plantings, fencing and long-term maintenance. This spring, new signs on the property's approximately three miles of public trails will be installed. Overall, the society hopes to invite more visitors while maintaining the property first and foremost as a sanctuary for wildlife and a fitting memorial to the contributions of its former owners.

"There are people who visit here year round," Heminway said, "but if it's not in your backyard, you probably don't make an effort to come here."

Also known as the Edwin Way Teale Memorial Sanctuary, Trail Wood has been part of the society's holdings since 1993, when Teale's wife Nellie died. Before her death, she deeded the property to the society, as she and her husband had agreed to do before his death in 1980.

The Teales moved to Trail Wood in 1959, when Edwin was an established nature writer. The couple sought a refuge in the state's rural northeast corner from the overdevelopment they saw encroaching on their Long Island, N.Y., home. Ten of his 31 books were written at Trail Wood, among them "A Naturalist Buys an Old Farm" and "A Walk Through the Year." The Teale name also is well known at the main campus of the University of Connecticut, just 16 miles away. His papers are kept at the Dodd Research Center there, and the Edwin Way Teale Lecture Series annually brings in well respected speakers on environmental topics.

"He was very meticulous in his observations. He was observing and writing all the time," Heminway said, as she and Rzeznikiewicz trekked along a pondside trail to a rustic one-room cabin. There, from spring through late fall, Teale would spend much of his days writing in solitude. The relentless distractions of text messages, email, Twitter, Instagram and other fixtures of the modern age can hardly even be contemplated in such a setting.

"Nellie's job was to divert visitors and see that he wasn't interrupted by the phone," Heminway said. "He'd be appalled by the way we live today."

The white Cape Cod house where the Teales lived, built in 1806, includes Teale's study and is open to visitors by appointment. The house also is home to Audubon's artist-in-residence program. The society is working to have the home added to the state's Resister of Historic Places. Fans of Teale who visit the property often look for the scenes so vividly described in his writings, Heminway said.

"There's one phrase in one of his books about 'going up the long, country lane,'" she said, looking up at the house from a small stone bridge over Hampton Brook that crosses the gravel road to the house. "People from all over who've read Teale's books do come here."

j.benson@theday.com

Twitter: @BensonJudy

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Trail Wood, The Edwin Way Teale Memorial Sanctuary of the Connecticut Audubon Society

WHERE: 96 Kenyon Road, Hampton

HOURS: Trails open daily, sunrise to sunset; Teale museum, study and writing cabin open by appointment.

INFORMATION: For a schedule or other information, visit www.ctaudubon.org or call (860) 928-4948.