Filtered sunlight bathed a forest understory in verdant iridescence the other morning, as friends and I crossed a stream on a wooden footbridge and meandered through one of the region’s newest nature preserves.

“A wonderful spot,” Maggie Jones said, gazing at fronds of varying sizes that spread out in every direction: showy cinnamon and royal ferns, mixed in among delicate lady and tapering ferns.

We were hiking through the Avalonia Land Conservancy (ALC) Copps Brook Preserve, which connects with sections of the Great Thicket National Wildlife Refuge, along with reservoir property owned by the Aquarion Water Company, to form a 240-acres swath of unspoiled woodland, pastures and wetlands.

The recently established preserve will expand wildlife habitat as well as help protect an important regional watershed.

“Wetland conservation is one of our primary goals,” Dennis Main, Avalonia’s president, told me earlier this week. The property also expands a natural greenway that links protected parcels in Stonington with Groton preserves on the west side of the Mystic River.

Although our hiking group traversed trails less than a mile from Interstate 95, the highway’s cacophony of honking horns and rumbling tires was drowned out by melodic calls from ovenbirds, red-eyed vireos, scarlet tanagers, Acadian flycatchers and wood thrushes.

“These are all forest interior migrant birds that depend on large woodland tracts,” Maggie said. The preserve is a hot spot for birders; last spring, a rarely seen Virginia rail, a chickenlike marsh bird, was observed.

Betsy Graham, Bob Graham and Phil Plouffe joined our recent ramble of nearly five miles, and gave the new preserve high marks for varied terrain and easy-to-navigate trails that promote a sense of serenity.

Some trails had already been cleared in the western portion of the property before Avalonia’s acquisition. Hikers can now stroll for about four miles on the preserve’s blue- and yellow-blazed trails, and tack on additional distance by venturing onto contiguous wildlife refuge paths. A map is posted near the parking lot off Al Harvey Road.

The eastern portion of the property, along Al Harvey Road, had been pastureland for grazing. Avalonia plans to maintain the main portion of this area as meadow habitat, with an emphasis on native pollinator plants. The berms around the parking area will also feature native grasses and plants.

In addition, ALC has included two parking spaces for people with disabilities, and plans to create a sitting area and walking path around a former paddock that will be accessible to all visitors.

Acquisition of the Copps Brook Preserve brings the amount of land now protected by ALC to 5,031 acres spread out among 87 land preserves, nearly all in eastern Connecticut.

ALC helped raise nearly $1.4 million to acquire the new preserve, a complex transaction involving private donations, foundation contributions and government grants, including money from the town of Stonington’s open space fund.

Under this arrangement, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service purchased 100 acres for inclusion in a vast network known as the Great Thicket National Wildlife Refuge. The Stonington parcel is among 565 other national wildlife refuges – at least one in every state – that cover more than 150 million acres.

The agreement allows ALC and Aquarion to protect some 120 acres surrounding Copps Brook, which flows into a reservoir serving Stonington and Mystic. The remaining acreage is part of a conservation easement granting public access to the property.

The Great Thicket National Wildlife Refuge was established in 2016 to benefit wildlife and humans alike.

The Wildlife Service notes that over the past century, many shrublands and young forests across the Northeast have been cleared for development or have grown into mature forests.

“As this habitat has disappeared, populations of more than 65 songbirds, mammals, reptiles, pollinators, and other wildlife that depend on it have fallen alarmingly,” the federal agency reports on its website.

The goal of the national refuge is to “benefit wildlife, provide unparalleled outdoor experiences for all Americans, and protect a healthy environment.

This sounds like a good plan – I hope it works in Stonington and the rest of the country. Faced with climate change, development pressures and other challenges, nature needs all the help it can get.

More information about the Copps Brook Preserve is available at avalonia.org/copps-brook-a-year-of-labor-and-love/.

Note: Don’t confuse this 240-acre Stonington preserve with the 240-acre Copp Family Park in Groton. Information about this property is available at https://www.groton-ct.gov/facility_detail_T74_R115.php.