Into the (not too) wild

THE SOUTHWEST has the Grand Canyon. The Southeast has the Everglades. The Northwest has the Rockies. And the Northeast has ... birds? Well, birds and beaches to be more exact, but it is true that the natural delights here do not typically take the form of unmatched geographical wonders. It's not scale that wows us here so much as the details, from the hundreds of bird species that attract birders to New England to the windswept diversity of our coastal life and the primeval quiet of our Northern forests.

Whether you're a lifelong resident or a newbie, there are plenty of discoveries to be made in our parks, preserves, and refuges. If you want to experience New England's splendor through vigorous physical activity or quiet observation, the options are equally plentiful. Whatever suits your fancy, the Phoenix has found 14 great locales where the flora and fauna are sure to make an impression.

Hometown heroes: The gems of Massachusetts
Hop on a water shuttle and leave the bustle of Beantown behind for Boston's own archipelago, the Boston Harbor Islands. The 34 islands, some situated just off the Boston coast and others as far down as Weymouth, vary in size, personality, and degrees of accessibility. There's definitely something for everyone, whether you're a tide-pool junkie, a fort-seeking Civil War buff, or one of those people determined to visit every lighthouse in the state.

One of the isles' grandest is Peddocks Island, which spans 188 acres. You can hike its trails by day, camp overnight, explore the remains of a World War I-era defense fort, and enjoy such environs as beach, salt marsh, forest, and ponds. The true mascots of the islands, of course, are the wild bunnies (how could you resist bunnies?), and they are plentiful on Lovells, Gallops, and Grape Islands.

Quite a different creature lies further south: the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History is home to the full-throttle excitement promised by "2004: The Year of the Alewife." Yes, the little fish is the heart of the matter this year at the Brewster institution, and why not? The purpose of the museum, situated on 80 acres abutting Cape Cod Bay, is to introduce visitors to the habitats and species of Cape Cod.

Inside the museum, two floors focus on marine life, with examples of whale bones and songs, and live exhibits of species such as moon jellies. The latest exhibit, which opened in April, is "Living on the Edge." With artwork, interactive exhibits, and computer aids, the 1500-square-foot exhibit explores the edges of coastal waters and asks, "Can you imagine what it's like to be a lobster, a tern, or a flounder?" Outside, naturalists lead guided walks on salt-marsh and woodland trails, by ponds, and along the ocean. And in summer (as well as during school vacations) it's kidsville, with special programs, including a learning-focused summer camp.

While you're on the Cape, you're never that far from the 43,000 acres of the Cape Cod National Seashore. This sweeping park area contains all the elements of Cape life: shorelands, dunes, ponds, lighthouses, a lifesaving station, and traditional Cape-style houses. No surprise, then, that it has four million visitors a year and that, for many, it defines Massachusetts. You can walk on 11 self-guiding nature trails, then cool off at one of six beaches before chowing down on lunch at one of the picnic sites. Fishing and cycling are permitted in many areas, or if you prefer, you can let a ranger plan your activity, including canoe tours and surf-casting demonstrations.

A mile outside Provincetown, the Province Lands Visitor Center features an observation deck that offers a memorable 360-degree view of the dunes, Outer Beach, Pilgrim Monument, and the Atlantic. And if you need a moment out of the sun, step inside for exhibits on local history, including the arrival of the Pilgrims.

Closer to home, the mammoth Blue Hills Reservation seems impossibly removed from the city that's only minutes away. Sprawling between Quincy and Dedham in one direction, Milton and Randolph in another, its 20,000 acres encompass 125 miles of trails, historic buildings, and preserved lands. It's the kind of place you can visit for years, but where you'll still find new things. (Including, so the park information says, the timber rattler - yikes!)

The park's name comes from the bluish tint European sailors spotted when the land came into view. But the locals already had a name for it: the Great Hills. (Our state name, Massachusetts, actually means "People of the Great Hills.") The greatest of the hills in question rises 635 feet and offers a view of the entire metropolitan area. But you may be too busy to pause for that; the park also offers boating, camping, fishing, horseback riding, rock climbing, and swimming, as well as a museum and an observatory. (Call the park's main number to find out which locale features which activity.)

In these parts, parks like Blue Hills tend to be on the historic side - established, say, a century (or two) ago. By that standard, the Tower Hill Botanic Garden, in Boylston, is just a baby, a mere 17 years old. But this babe didn't take long to grow up: it's a unique and fully realized park already.

Operated on 132 acres by the Worcester County Horticultural Society, the garden offers a number of inviting trails, a vegetable garden, and a pond, as well as ample space for picnics or just lolling about on a blanket. Other attractions include an apple orchard with 119 pre-20th-century apple varieties, and the Lawn Garden, which is bordered by 350 varieties of trees, shrubs, and perennials.

Two unusual features make the trip especially worthwhile. There is a human-size "birdhouse," where eight bird feeders are maintained to attract birds to the viewing platform. And, perhaps most impressive, a year-round glass greenhouse, the Orangerie, features winter-blooming plants. Spanning 4000 square feet on multiple levels, the 18th-century-style greenhouse is home to palms, citrus trees, ferns, shrubs, annuals, and blooming bulbs.

Little Rhodie's big offerings
Since its first Native American inhabitants occupied the land 10,000 years ago, Newport County has been a place where humans and animals have co-existed. Even as modernity has changed the landscape, some of its natural beauty has been preserved at the Norman Bird Sanctuary, in Middletown, Rhode Island.

For the past 50 years, the sanctuary has preserved more than 300 acres of open space, including hayfields, woodlands, and hiking trails that bring you to four ridges offering views of the ocean and other bodies of water. Among the options: the Quarry Trail, which passes through fields maintained to attract mice, rabbit, fox, pheasant, woodcock, and song birds; Hanging Rock Trail, the site's most popular, which leads you to a view of the ocean from a 70-foot vantage point; the enchantingly named Warbler Meadows, which leads to the duck pond; and Indian Rock Trail, used by the Narragansett tribe for gathering materials needed for arrowhead construction.

Not all the sanctuary's pleasures are meant to be enjoyed in solitude. Nature Day Camps (including Preschooler with Parents) are popular, as is the annual Birds & Breakfast event that occurs every spring during the spring migration. Rhode Islanders do seem to love their birds, which is why they flock not just to the Norman Sanctuary, but to the Audubon Environmental Education Center, in Bristol. Of course, the Audubon Center is quick to point out that it offers more than birding. (Note to avid birders: yes, there is more to life.) In addition to exploring the surrounding grounds during summer hikes, you can snowshoe and cross-country ski in winter. It's also home to the largest aquarium in the state, and includes a tide-pool tank, a life-size right-whale model, and habitat exhibits (among them: "Cornfield at Night," which seems a little non-aquatic, but must have a certain appeal). One of the center's most appealing attractions is a new boardwalk that runs from the exhibits out to the Narragansett Bay shoreline.

If walking along the bay isn't quite enough, you don't have to stay ashore. Block Island perches in Narragansett Bay itself, and while it may not be the biggest refuge, it's certainly one of the prettiest. A mere 127 acres, it boasts a stunning array of songbirds - partly due to the number of birds that "overfly" the mainland and then find the island so amenable that they stay. With 70 species frequenting the island, a more determined species follows by no accident: human birders, who love this place.

Other distinctions abound: it's a haven for the endangered piping plover, home to the largest gull colony in Rhode Island, and the only locale east of the Mississippi supporting a population of the endangered American burying beetle (the study of which is perhaps more of an acquired taste than birding).

Because it's 12 miles offshore, your visit also includes a ferry-boat ride, from Point Judith, in Narragansett. And when you're not scoping out birds and beetles, you can enjoy strolls on the dune-lined beaches, perhaps spotting marine life. Larger and less intensely bird-focused, Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge draws 50,000 visitors to South Kingston, Rhode Island, every year. What brings them? The variety of species thriving there: 300 varieties of birds, 40 of mammals, and 20 more of reptiles and amphibians. Some species are threatened or rare, like the piping plover, least tern, and osprey, all of which nest here. And migratory songbirds fly in (on vacation, perhaps) from all over the US.

The refuge came into being when hunter/pilot Ann Kenyon Morse donated its first 365 acres, in 1987. Since then, the site has grown to 800 acres, and there are plans to add another 1200. With so much room, the use of the space is naturally varied. A small portion of the refuge is open for hunting Canada geese and doves (who knew there was a dove-hunting season?), but for those not inclined to kill anything, there are walking trails, viewing platforms, and kiosks with nature information.

Up North and Down East: The best of Maine and New Hampshire
The mother of all New England parks is Acadia National Park, just outside Bar Harbor, Maine. Unlike most parks, things here tend to be measured not in acres but in miles. For three seasons out of four, the park opens 45 miles of carriage roads for walking, hiking, and biking, and 115 miles of off-road hiking trails, some of which offer spectacular ocean views. And if you like to experience your nature from the comfort of a cushy seat, you can drive the 20-mile Park Loop Road and take the seven-mile spur road to Cadillac Mountain.

From May to mid October, the friendly and knowledgeable park rangers lead a variety of programs, including bird walks (and, for those who want more than songbirds, a hawk-watch), boat cruises, evening slide programs, mountain hikes, stargazing, short talks, and nature walks. Even in the winter, when most of Park Loop Road is closed to traffic, the park is still abuzz: carriage roads attract eager cross-country skiers and snowshoers.

Less mammoth, but no less busy for its size, Gilsland Farm, in Falmouth, Maine, is a veritable hive of activity. With a seemingly endless slate of visitor activities each month, this Audubon site has a little something for everyone. The May activities, for instance, included a frog-pond excursion, a wildflower walk, family nature walks, and gardening tips. Among the farm's recurrent offerings are lessons in bird-banding, introducing visitors to the practice that facilitates the study of chickadees, cardinals, catbirds, common yellowthroats, and song sparrows, all of which breed at the farm. Its naturalists also have been tagging and tracking a flightless resident species, native groundhogs, for the past seven years. Indoor events include Travelers Club, a series in which guest speakers present tales of their experiences abroad, and a Nature Book Club, for those who like to read about the secrets of the world.

When your competition is Acadia, you have to be epic in scope. Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge, in Baring, Maine, is so big, it's two parks: the Baring Division is a mammoth 17,000 acres, while the Edmunds Division comes in at a shrimpy 7000. Between them, they make up the easternmost refuge along the North American migratory route known as the Atlantic Flyway. All refuge roads are closed to traffic, so hikers and cyclists can enjoy 50 miles of trails in safety and serenity. (Bicycles are not, however, allowed off these roads into the wilderness area.) For the rod-and-reel set, multiple lakes and streams are open to fishing.

Next door in New Hampshire, the state's first refuge awaits. A relative youngster, Wapack National Wildlife Refuge (abutting Miller State Park) wasn't established until 1972. But youthful or not, its 1600 acres reward visitors with wildlife aplenty, including tree sparrow, Swainson's thrush, magnolia warbler, crossbills, pine grosbeaks and white-throated sparrow, deer, bear, coyote, fisher, fox, mink, and weasel. (Got all that?)

But the area's perhaps most loved for its mountain views. North Pack Monadnock Mountain rises 2300 feet (a staggering height in these parts), and the Wapack Trail - an Appalachian Trail spur - cuts a three-mile swath through the refuge. Of course, no mountain is more famous in New England than Mount Washington. Like the tough kid who brags about how he got that horrible scar, Mount Washington State Park boasts that "the highest wind velocity ever measured on earth, 231 miles per hour, was clocked on the summit on April 12, 1934," and that "wind exceeds hurricane force (75 mph) over one hundred days a year" with an "average temperature of 27.1 F (-2.7 C)." These are hardly hospitable boasts, but the lure of the wild and mighty mountain draws many thousands each year.

What they really come for is not the wind, but the epic scale of nature. Though the park itself is a tiny 59-acre plot, it's the crown of a 750,000-acre forest. And the summit offers a vista completely unparalleled in the Northeast. Peaking at over 6000 feet, it provides views that extend as far north as Quebec and as far south as New York - on a clear day, at least. Bear in mind: the park is open only from May to October, so extreme thrill-seekers won't freeze to death.

David Valdes Greenwood can be reached at impersonalstuff@aol.com.