State guide

Connecticut Nature Guide

Connecticut packs an outsized range of habitats into a small state, from the warm, tidal shoreline of Long Island Sound through the central Connecticut River valley to the cool, forested highlands of the Litchfield Hills in the northwest. It sits in the Northeastern Coastal Forest with a humid continental climate, and its USDA zones run from a mild 7b along the coast to a cooler 6a in the hills — a gradient that gives the same week of spring or fall a very different feel depending on where you stand. The result is a rich four-season calendar: wintering waterfowl on the Sound, an explosive spring warbler passage, mountain-laurel-draped June woods, and one of the East's great hawk-migration spectacles each autumn at Lighthouse Point.