A spring peeper frog’s shrill chirp pierced the still air the other day, as four of us hiked near a marsh at Pequot Woods in Groton.

“It’s fall, not spring. What’s a peeper doing out now?” I asked.

“He’s confused,” Maggie Jones replied, explaining that last week’s unseasonably warm weather must have led the lonely amphibian to think it was his favorite time of year: mating season.

“Go back to sleep,” I called in the direction of the reeds, “You’re not supposed to wake up for another four months.” Peepers typically burrow in mud during winter; their chorus is one of the first harbingers of spring.

A much more familiar – and unwelcome – autumnal sound greeted Phil Plouffe, Marco Barres, Maggie and me when we set out that morning: the drone of a gas-powered leaf-blower.

“Like fingernails on a blackboard,” I muttered.

Maggie nodded. Her Perspective article in last Sunday’s edition of The Day (“Autumn’s auditory assault: Let falling leaves lie”) decried the infernal racket of leaf blowers, and pointed out that removing fallen leaves deprives deciduous trees and shrubs of nutrients, as well as destroys a natural, protective blanket for small animals and insects.

Mercifully, the ear-splitting whine subsided the farther we hiked along the trail. After starting the hike at a small, unpaved parking lot off Sandy Hollow Road, not far from the I-95 interchange at Cow Hill Road in Mystic, we followed the main trail on a loop of about three miles.

The route took us along stone walls, past a beaver pond, across Fishtown Brook, through woodlands and wetlands, on a mostly flat footpath. As the leaf blower cacophony diminished, we began to hear assorted bird calls, including a white-throated sparrow, hermit thrush, golden-crowned kinglet and hairy woodpecker.

In less than an hour we reached the southern end of the property at Route 1, just east of Fishtown Road, and heard a scream overhead. Directly above us, a red-tailed hawk circled lazily, then drifted north with the breeze while issuing another screeching call. It may have been alerting other birds that humans were afoot.

Rather than retracing our footsteps on the return trip to Sandy Hollow Road, we veered onto an upper trail that parallels Allyn Street. Uneven rocks and muddy sections make this route more challenging than the smooth, flat lower trail.

It also passes close to residential backyards. No doubt many more new houses would have been built if it hadn’t been for the generosity and environmental sentiments of Lucy Tomkins Wormhoudt, who lived nearby on High Street. In 1972, she donated 80 acres to the Town of Groton to create the public park. Subsequent land acquisitions expanded the parcel to nearly 178 acres.

Mrs. Wormhoudt’s gift came during the birth of the modern conservation movement. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was established in 1970, the same year that the Clean Air Act was enacted.

That year, a residents’ group that later became the Groton Open Space Association raised money to buy Haley Farm, now a state park; five years later, the state created Bluff Point Coastal Preserve.

Since then, GOSA, Avalonia Land Conservancy and numerous other southeastern Connecticut land-preservation organizations have established dozens of preserves that encompass thousands of acres.

Pequot Woods may not offer sweeping views from ridges or shorelines, but it does provide visitors with easy access to a natural haven, where they can stretch the legs, breathe fresh air and escape the intrusive whine of leaf blowers.

For that, we are grateful for Lucy Wormhoudt. She died at age 85 in 1995, knowing that future generations will continue to enjoy her gift.

Directions: For the main entrance, take Exit 89 on I-95, turn right on Allyn Street, then an immediate right onto Sandy Hollow Road. Follow about a quarter mile to a parking lot on the left. For the Route 1 entrance, take Exit 89, turn right on Allyn Street, and follow 1.25 miles to a stoplight on Route 1. Turn right to a trailhead on the right in 0.6 mi.