For a stark experience of nature, super-wide views of the Long Island Sound and the chance to take a deep, relaxing breath, there’s an answer off the coast of Branford: Outer Island.
Named for its location, this outermost member of the Thimble Islands is a bird sanctuary, a research/education center and a delight to visit—and getting there is half the fun. You can captain your own small vessel, if you have one, or you can book a $20 round-trip ferry that takes about 15 minutes in each direction. The route covers about a mile and a half, passing many other Thimbles along the way. Some of them hold one or two grand seasonal homes, while others, unexpectedly, feature rows of houses on tiny lots.
Outer Island itself harbors one house—the unoccupied former home of the island’s last private owner, Elizabeth Hird—along with a lab building, a pavilion and a shed. About half of its five acres are open to visitors, including a beach no bigger than a good backyard garden. The Sound views, however, are as big as you can imagine.
Ian Bergemann, former president of the volunteer Friends of Outer Island, said the island’s most picturesque feature is the Moon Garden, a lush space behind a six-foot high stone wall planted with flowers that bloom in moonlight. During visiting hours (8 a.m. to sunset), a circular “moon window” overlooks the Sound and, on a clear day, offers a view of Long Island.
Nearby, a huge boulder on a promontory probably isn’t a moon rock, but it is a remnant of an ice age. “It was dropped off by a receding glacier,” Bergemann said, meaning it has weathered at least 25,000 years of blizzards and hurricanes, perhaps looking better for the wear. “The whole history of the Thimble Islands is glaciers receding and carving out massive islands of pink granite,” Bergemann added.
His mention of the granite takes the conversation to another island feature: the massive layer of granite ringing the island, though, in its natural state, it doesn’t look particularly pink. But it’s as strong and sturdy as that ancient boulder, a highly valued material for everything from kitchen counters to monuments, including, as Bergemann noted, the Statue of Liberty.
Once upon a time, a pair of trees here were monuments, with the Wangunk tribe reportedly naming the island “Two-Tree Island” after a pair of tall pines. Bergemann said the trees were cut down in the 1600s, apparently to deny pirates a safe place to moor. Many years later, two more trees that had grown up in their place were themselves cut down, he said, to prevent the British navy from using them as navigation aids.
Today, Outer Island is part of the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge, which spans nine discrete coastal locations from Greenwich to Westbrook. The island was donated to the US Fish and Wildlife Service in 1995 by Elizabeth Hird in memory of her husband, Basil Rauch, who had been a professor of history at Columbia University. The couple had spent summers on the island beginning in 1964.
The McKinney Refuge works in conjunction with the Connecticut state university system to conduct eduction and research programs. Bergemann himself said he remembers coming here in fifth grade. During his college years, he conducted tours as an intern for the next generation of youngsters.
It should be noted that while the island is a getaway from the stresses of the mainland, it isn’t stress-free. Bug spray is advisable, as the black flies are always hungry, and they seem to find humans a delectable feast.
But the flies are no reason not to go, and if you want to make the trip, you’ve got about six weeks to do so. According to the website, this year’s visiting season ends “on or about” September 25. Bergemann said the last weeks of the season, in September, are particularly inviting, pointing to a lush crop of goldenrod and predicting that, starting around early September, they’ll attract large numbers of monarch butterflies.
Spread your wings a bit wider than usual, and you can meet them there.
Written and photographed by Jim Murphy. This updated story was originally published on September 5, 2023.
