Latest Stories, Events, Activities, Camps & Recipes

Each spring, on the first warm, rainy night, frogs and salamanders emerge and begin an extraordinary journey to the vernal pools where they breed.

Essex County Greenbelt Association invites families to Cox Reservation for a show-and-tell that introduces children of all ages to the importance of bees and other pollinators.

Greenbelt and North Shore Nature Programs team up for this event for all ages!Join expert naturalists to learn all about vernal pools and the creatures that live there! 

While just about everybody on the North Shore has probably been to Crane Beach, the dunes of Castle Neck are a much less explored world unto themselves. Offering one of the most accessible dune ecosystems north of Cape Cod, Castle Neck has over six miles of trails, traversing the dunes, maritime scrub forest, and beautiful beaches on both the Ipswich Bay and Essex/Castle Neck River estuary sides of the peninsula. These trails take you through Pitch Pine forests, up huge dunes offering stunning views of Choate Island, and by the varied landscapes of Castle Neck, including naturally occurring cranberry bogs.