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Location: The Sedge Meadow Conservation Area sits off of Moore Road, southeast from the Sudbury River and the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.
Access: Parking is located off of Moore Road or in the small SVT lot just east of 42 Glezen Lane.
History: Sedge Meadow Conservation Area is 93 acres of land owned by the Town of Wayland and the Sudbury Valley Trustees. The area encompasses active and fallow farm fields and woodland. Pod Meadow offers roughly 1.5 miles of trail and several loop options. The main trail, a portion of the Bay Circuit Trail, passes around farm fields and meadows and through level woods, so provides easy walking and wonderful cross-country skiing opportunities. In the spring, some of the trails that border the fields become so wet as to be impassable. Stone artifacts indicate that Native Americans maintained summer settlements 3,000-8,000 years ago in the Sedge Meadow area. Their clearings were utilized by early European settlers. In 1711, a dam built on the Concord River altered the area significantly - the large cranberry beds were flooded and
the value of the meadows dropped significantly. In the 1700s and 1800s, higher portions of the area were operated by the Watertown Dairy. Currently, several of the fields are leased to Arena farms, a local family farm, for vegetable production. Arena farms uses a variety of integrated pest management and crop rotation to maximize production while minimizing harm to the environment. They are trying to establish one parcel of land for the production of organic vegetables.
Natural Habitat/Wildlife: The soils of this area are extremely rich - the deep dark loam is derived from enriched glacial silt deposited in glacial Lake Sudbury during the last great Ice Age over 12,000 years ago. The fields in the Sedge Meadow area are prime habitat for sparrows, snow and indigo buntings, orioles, warblers, woodcocks, tree swallows and night hawks. A variety of raptors may be seen in the area - listen carefully and you may hear owls. White-tailed deer are common. Butterflies of all varieties abound. The pine-studded knoll northwest of the main parking area is a "kame delta," made of glacially-borne sediments deposited in the upper reaches of glacial Lake Sudbury during the Ice Age roughly 12,000 years ago. It has proven to be an archaeologically rich site. In the early spring and late fall, from the
knoll, hooded and common mergansers, golden eyes, and buffleheads can be seen on the Sudbury River. The river often floods up to the edge of the tilled fields, bringing the wildlife with it! The small pond, fed by street drainage and groundwater, is a haven form birds, small mammals and other wildlife.
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