An extensive network of protected fields, forests,s and trails along the Ipswich River provides a great place to discover how forest and field management affect the landscape. The forest in the front area is an organically rich bottomland that supports mature swamp white oak, red oak, and red maple, including some trees with a diameter of nearly four feet.

Before European settlement, Indigenous people living in this area used the Ipswich River to canoe to their fishing grounds in Ipswich Bay and their fishing camps and clam flats around Plum Island Sound. An archaeological survey conducted by Ripley Bullen in the 1940s identified 68 settlement sites along the Ipswich River in terrain similar to that found in the Julia Bird Reservation.

As you walk further into the property, you will enter an open forest area that has been managed for timber.

Adjacent to Appleton Farm, it is part of an extensive network of protected open space along the Ipswich River throughout Ipswich, Hamilton, Wenham, and Topsfield.

Parking is limited to 2 cars.