Williams College
Tier2-2: Wildlife Habitat

Hopkins Memorial Forest is a 2600 acre reserve in Massachusetts, New York and Vermont managed by the Williams College Center for Environmental Studies (CES) to facilitate research and undergraduate teaching activities while preserving and monitoring forest resources.

Hopkins forest harbors a wide array of wildlife species native to the Eastern North America. Among the mammals, white-tailed deer, black bear, porcupines and bobcats are the more charismatic although in the forest, all orders are present--down to bats, mice, shrews, and moles. Birds are represented by over 100 species of which over 40 nest here, including the black-capped chickadee, black-throated blue warbler, Eastern wood pewee, hermit thrush, ruffed grouse, American Woodcock, yellow-bellied sapsucker, and barred owl. Reptiles and amphibians are represented by the numerous milk and garter snakes and American toads in the summer and an array of vernal pool breeders--spring peepers, wood frogs, gray tree frogs, green frogs, red-spotted newts and spotted salamanders in the spring. There are several species of darters and minnows in the streams, and a world of invertebrate life teeming from the stream bottoms to the tree canopy.