Davidson Mill pond park provides unexpected natural surprises
By: John Saccenti
It wasn’t so much "gooorgeous," (as the late Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin would call it) as it was startling a water snake that measured maybe 3 feet long resting just an inch or two below the water’s surface.
Minutes later we watched as it made off with a just caught sunfish in its mouth.
I’ve owned snakes before, always the small but still filled-with-reptile-fun-garter snake, and I’ve seen my share of them in the wild, but always just the tail as they slither in fear before my hiking boot. But, I’ve never seen one this big near my home, in a park I frequent, in an area that I’ve stood near.
It was cool, and just one reason why I like the area, despite my constantly complaining about it being too flat, and to swampy.
But where, you ask, is this place, where the snakes run free and feast on sunnies?
It was just below the waterfall at Davidson Mill Pond Park on Riva Avenue, also known by my family as "goose poop park," for reasons you can probably figure out on your own.
I was told that day, just two weeks ago, by a fellow fisherman that this critter was probably one of four or five that called that section of tall weed and grass home.
If you ask me, it was just one part of an afternoon of outdoor fun, and just the tip of the iceberg of things you can do at this passive park.
There isn’t a lot you can do at Davidson Mill Pond Park. There are no swings. There are no tennis courts. There are no slides, fields or monkey bars.
But there is a lake. It runs like a waterfall through a small brick wall (remains of, I assume, Davidson’s Mill) and into a creek that feeds Farrington Lake. The lake is the park’s main draw, with fishing (ice and water) and boating (sorry, no gas engines) being two favorite pastimes of visitors. In addition to that, there’s a small pond behind the main parking lot that has enough aquatic life to fill a year of science classes. If you want, there’s also some woods that you can wander through, although you should be prepared for a short (but still fun) hike.
The park’s also home to the Rutgers Cooperative and Extension, which runs programs that include master gardener classes, soil test kits and diagnosing of pest and disease samples. It also has the 4-H youth development department.
But that’s, of course, not why my daughter and I went. We went for the fish.
We started our day off at the Church Lane Deli in North Brunswick, where we bought a container of fat, juicy worms, and spent the next several hours hooking worms, losing our worms and not catching anything.
Yep, we didn’t have much luck. But, we did manage to see the snake show, which helped make the day a good one.
John Saccenti is news editor for The Cranbury Press and the South Brunswick Post. He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].

