The Manchester Cedar Swamp is a 602-acre ecological preserve, owned by the NH Nature Conservancy in New Hampshire, it is located off of Hackett Hill road on Countryside Blvd., and is one of the state’s most significant ecological areas.
The trail network passes through a wide variety of rare and unusual plant species, including an Atlantic white cedar swamp and patches of giant rhododendron and western red cedar trees. Parts of the trail are through the swamp area via board-walk as shown in the video below.
You will find lots of square holes in the red cedar trees made by the Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus Pileatus), the largest woodpecker in North America.
The grain of western red cedar is very straight so that when the woodpecker hammers with its bill into the trunk, large, straight pieces are removed. This results in very square corners and a very clean rectangular shape.
(Image of woodpecker released into the public domain by its author, Andrew Brownsword to Wikipedia.)
