Worcester’s Inside Guide: Broad Meadow Brook

Thursday, March 08, 2012

Susan Wagner GoLocalWorcester Contributor

Father and child enjoying a walk at Broad Meadow Brook

Broad Meadow Brook Conservation Center and Wildlife Sanctuary is the largest urban nature sanctuary in New England, with 430 acres to explore. Established in 1990 and managed by Mass Audubon, the sanctuary is rich in natural resources and encompasses a variety of habitats including fields, open marshes, forests, brooks, and a frog pond teeming with animal and plant life.

A day at Broad Meadow Brook feels like a day out in the country; it is hard to believe that you are still in New England’s second largest city. Free trail maps and more than four miles of extremely well marked trails insure that even the novice hiker will never get lost. The sanctuary features wheelchair and stroller accessible trails, a covered picnic pavilion, and a deck to relax on.

The green Visitor Center building produces its own energy with rooftop solar panels and houses a gift shop, bookstore, nature exhibits and books, public information on wildlife and conservation, and a meeting space. Programs for all ages are offered on a variety of natural topics.

“We are totally set up to welcome and guide the public. At Broad Meadow Brook, we are committed to the experience of connecting city dwellers to natural spaces and wildlife. We want each visitor to feel inspired by being outside in the vast natural beauty that can be found right in their own city,” explains Deb Cary, Director of Central Sanctuaries for Mass Audubon.

For children, Broad Meadow Brook offers an educational experience around every corner. In summer, favorite pastimes include searching for aquatic dwellers in the frog pond and trying to coax one of the 78 species of butterflies to land on a small arm. Over 160 types of birds visit the sanctuary’s feeders, fields, and forests, and dusk is the perfect time to view deer. Summer camps and programs for families and children are also available.
Green thumbs will enjoy Broad Meadow’s educational landscaping. A rain garden prevents pollution by collecting roof runoff and nourishing native flowers that produce an array of beautiful colors and scents and berries that feed the birds. Observers learn how to have their own backyard oasis, complete with butterflies and water features.

Inside The Broad Meadow Brook's Visitors Center

A sanctuary for all seasons, Broad Meadow Brook offers a canopy of green in spring and refuge of shaded trails in summer. The brief explosion of fall colors leads into the singular beauty of a snowshoe trek through snow-covered woods. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of nature’s changing moods, “The inhabitants of cities suppose that the country landscape is pleasant only half the year. I please myself with the graces of the winter scenery, and believe that we are as much touched by it as by the genial influences of summer. To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again.” Every walk at Broad Meadow Brook can feel as if you are visiting for the first time.

If you go: Broad Meadow Brook Wildlife Sanctuary is located at 414 Massasoit Road in Worcester. Admission is free for Worcester residents as well as members of Mass Audubon and the Greater Worcester Land Trust. Admission for all others is $4 for adults and $3 for children and seniors. The center is open from Tuesday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday from12:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. Trails are open every day, dawn to dusk. For more information, call 508-753-6087 or email [email protected].

Insider Tips:
Furry friends are not allowed at the sanctuary. However, dog friendly Perkins Farm Conservation Area is close by and has a designated parking area behind the Stop & Shop at Perkins Farm Market Place on Grafton Street.
While snowshoes are almost always available for all ages and sizes for a nominal fee, the sanctuary advises calling ahead as special programs can clear out their supply.
Broad Meadow Brook also serves as a visitor information center for the National Park Service's John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor.

Susan D. Wagner is a Worcester resident and president of Susan Wagner PR, a boutique public relations firm invested in meeting client's goals with integrity and creativity. She is also Managing Partner for The Boston Ad Agency and Director of Corporate Communications for Boston Web Designers.