This park is a rather unique park in that it has a rather extensive area of natural meadow habitat. The park is also home to the Hebert Arboretum, which I have never explored. Springside park is an excellent site for birdwatching and general ecological interest. Meadow-loving species, like field sparrow, which can be hard to find elsewhere, can be easily observed here. I also saw people here capturing butterflies; I can imagine this would be a good place to collect (or just view) butterflies.
There is a main path through the meadow that has some gravel on it, and then a bunch of periodically mowed paths. The mowing on these paths was recent enough that it is probably relatively tick-safe if you stay on the paths. This could be tick heaven if you go off the path though, so be careful. I would be cautious about bringing pets to this park because they might be likely to come back with a bunch of ticks on them if they run into the denser meadow areas.
One last word of warning: the road that goes in here is a dirt road, and is in quite terrible shape. Given how close to the middle of Pittsfield this is, and how short the road was, I was quite surprised by how bad the road was. It was pretty bumpy, and I can imagine that the road will only continue to deteriorate with rain. Until they fix up the road, you may want to find a place to park earlier on in the road and walk in, rather than driving the whole way in. read more