Black Cat Farm

SVT hosts a trailhead here for the much larger adjacent lands managed by the Town of Wayland and Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. Trails skirt open fields and take walkers along the edge of the river marshes of the Great Meadows.

The fields attract a variety of butterflies and birds, including woodcock and raptors. The knoll in the northernmost field can provide a view in early spring and late fall of goldeneyes, mergansers, and buffleheads on the river.

The Bay Circuit Trail (BCT) crosses this property; the BCT stretches 200 miles through eastern Massachusetts, from Plum Island on the North Shore to Kingston on the South Shore. 

Full Description

Finding a way to protect the fields, woods, and flood plain at Wayland’s Watertown Dairy—an expansive farm near the Sudbury River in the northern part of town—had been on SVT’s wish list since its founding in 1953.

It took collaboration with local, state, and federal agencies and funding from a variety of public and private sources to finally protect, in 1989, what is now the Town of Wayland’s Sedge Meadow Conservation Area

As part of the collaboration, SVT retained a 0.9-acre trail head on Glezen Lane known as Black Cat Farm, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service purchased 143 acres of the farm and added them to the adjacent Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.

  • These trails skirt fields leased to a local farmer.
  • This is prime agricultural land, benefiting from rich loam deposited in glacial Lake Sudbury.
  • There is evidence of Native American summer settlements here. Their clearings were later used by early European settlers.

Directions

With mapping software, search for this address: 46 Glezen Lane, Wayland, MA

From Wayland Center (intersection of Route 20 and Routes 27/126), take Route 27 north toward Sudbury for 0.9 mile. Turn right onto Glezen Lane. Go 0.4 mile. Parking lot and trail access is on the left between house numbers 42 and 48.

Click here to visit Google Maps for specific directions from your home.

Nearby Nature Sightings

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A bronze copper in Wayland, photographed by Lucian Vazquez.
Lucian Vazquez photographed a bronze copper butterfly and a leopard frog at Sedge Meadow Conservation Land in Wayland.