Outside Now
Today and tonight
Listen forIn season
These birds spent the summer in the spruce woods of Canada and northern New England. From mid-September they turn up under yard shrubs, kicking backward with both feet at once to fling the leaf litter aside.
Go seeScheduled
Off the Beaten Path picks somewhere new each Friday and walks it slowly enough to notice what is in it. Free, about twenty minutes out in Carlisle, and binoculars are worth carrying.
Right outsideIf it's clear
Venus is the brightest thing in the west after sunset and it sits just above the treeline. If you cannot find it from the yard tonight, you have learned something useful: that sightline is blocked.
Coming soonForecast
The forecast has Saturday sunny and 77, with showers arriving overnight. Sunday carries an 80 percent chance of rain, thunderstorms possible before 2pm, and patchy fog first thing.
Right outsideCalculated
Sunset is 7:02 tonight and slides earlier every evening from here. It bottoms out on December 8, a fortnight before the shortest day, while mornings keep getting darker into January.
Tomorrow through Sep 18
Go seeScheduled
Acton Conservation Trust runs this one free, 7 to 9 in the morning, while the night's arrivals are still feeding low. Warblers and thrushes move through; hawks pick up the thermals later.
Go seeScheduled
The walk takes the plants that build a New England meadow, and the woodland edge behind it, one species at a time. Harvard, about half an hour out, and tickets were still available at the last scan.
Go seeOpen now
Bolton Spring Farm has Shiro and Red Heart plums, plumcots and flat Saturn peaches beside its first pick-your-own McIntosh. It is cash only, with an ATM on site.
Right outsideCalculated
New moon was last night, so there is no moonlight at all right now. From about Sunday a thin crescent reappears low in the west at dusk and thickens each evening until it is half lit on Friday.
Sep 19 and beyond
Go seeScheduled
Wetland Detectives puts children aged 5 to 12 over the boardwalk with dip nets, pulling up mayfly nymphs, tadpoles, diving beetles and water striders to look at properly before putting them back.
Coming soonForecast
Shelburne Farm's own harvest schedule expects Macoun, Fuji, Crimson Crisp, Autumn Crisp and Sweet Sixteen to open around September 19. McIntosh and Honeycrisp are pickable there now.
That's what's worth noticing around Sudbury today. Go have a look.