Essex Wildlife Trust

thumb|320px|View from [[Blue House Farm bird hide]]

Essex Wildlife Trust is one of 46 Wildlife Trusts which cover the United Kingdom. Essex Wildlife Trust was founded in 1959, and it describes itself as Essex's leading conservation charity, which aims to protect wildlife for the future and the people of the county. As of 2026, it has 40,000 members, runs almost 100 nature reserves and 11 Nature Discovery Centres.

Essex has one of the longest coastlines of any English county, with saltmarshes, lagoons, mudflats, grazing marshes, reedbeds and shingle. Its ancient forests were formerly important to the local economy, with wood being used for fuel, construction and bark in the tanning industry. Coppicing is being re-introduced by the Trust to encourage woodland grasses, flowers, invertebrates and birds. A few grasslands on the heavy clays of south- and mid-Essex are still grazed according to traditional methods, supporting a mixture of pasture and fen. Some brownfield sites, often on contaminated soil, have populations of nationally scarce species, particularly invertebrates.

Essex Wildlife Trust's first site was Fingringhoe Wick, which was established in 1961; its visitor centre has views over the Colne Estuary.

|100px|alt=Abberton Reservoir

|Colchester

| YES

|EWTVC, Ramsar, SPA, SSSI

! scope="row"|Abbotts Hall Farm

|100px|alt=Abbotts Hall Farm

|Colchester

| PP

|NNR, Ramsar, SAC, SM, SPA, SSSI

|This is the headquarters of the EWT, as well as a working farm which is managed to encourage wildlife. New seawalls have been built to create marshland, which has many fish, providing food for migrating birds. A new lake has also been constructed, and fields provide additional habitats for fauna such as skylarks.

|100px|alt=Aubrey Buxton

|Elsenham

| YES

|The site is woodland on a sandy and gravel soil, with meadows and six man-made ponds. Grassland plants include wild strawberries and common spotted orchids. There are birds such as nuthatches and woodpeckers. Black poplars, which are the county's rarest native tree, have been planted to replace trees lost to storm damage.

|100px|alt=Bedfords Park Deer

|Havering-atte-Bower

| YES

|EWTVC,

|The London Borough of Havering owns and manages Bedfords Park, while the EWT manages the visitor centre.

|100px|alt=Prittle Brook in Belfairs Wood

| SSSI

|This is a small remnant of the ancient Hadleigh Great Wood. It is coppiced oak woodland on sands, gravels and clay, and one of the largest areas of old woodland in the south of the county. Plants include the rare broad-leaved helleborine.

|100px|alt=Blue House Farm

|North Fambridge

| FP

|SSSI

|This site has been grassland for the last 100 years, and it is grazed by cows and sheep. The site has ponds, creeks and ditches, and a 20 hectare field is flooded during the winter, providing feeding grounds for large numbers of wildfowl and wading birds, including around 2000 Brent geese.

|100px|alt=Bradwell Shell Bank

|N/Av

|Bradwell-on-Sea

| PP

|NCR, Ramsar, SAC,

|100px|alt=Brookes Nature Reserve

|Halstead

| YES

|SSSI There is also a variety of butterflies, and ponds which have frogs and newts.

|100px|alt=Chafford Gorges

|Grays

| YES

|EWTVC, SSSI

|This site has lakes, woodland and meadows. There are common spotted, bee and bird's nest orchids, and long-eared and common pipistrelle bats.

|100px|alt=Chigborough Lakes

|Maldon

| YES

|This area of former gravel pits has diverse habitats, lakes, marshes, willow carr, grazed grassland and scrub. More than 120 species of bird have been recorded, out of which more than 40 have bred, including great crested grebes, grey herons and little egrets. There are eleven species of willow and several of orchid.

|100px|alt=Cockaynes Wood

|Wivenhoe

| PP

|Cockaynes Wood is ancient, and was listed in the Domesday Book. The nature reserve also includes Villa Wood and more open areas, with heathland, meadows, and water-filled former quarries. Wildlife includes a rare weevil and birds including barn owls.

|100px|alt=Colne Point

|St Osyth

| YES

|NCR, Ramsar, SSSI

|100px|alt=Copperas Wood

|Harwich

| YES

|SSSI

|This is ancient sweet chestnut and hornbeam coppice. The Great Storm of 1987 caused severe damage, and some areas have been left to regenerate naturally. Around 100 bird species have been observed, out of which 43 are nesting, and there are 23 butterfly species and over 300 of moths.

|100px|alt=Cranham Marsh

|Cranham

| YES

|LNR

|The habitats on the site are woodland, wet meadow, marsh and fen. There are three small woods, including Spring Wood, which has species indicative of ancient woodland. Insects include a rare bee, Macropis europaea, and 23 species of butterfly have been recorded.

! scope="row"|Crowsheath Wood

|100px|alt=Crowsheath Wood

|Downham

| YES

|The wood has many mature oak trees, with coppiced areas mainly of hornbeam, together with other trees such as ash and field maple. There are ponds in the centre of the site where lesser spearwort grows. Flowers include bluebell and wood anemone, and there are birds typical of broadleaved woodland.

|100px|alt=Danbury Ridge

|Danbury

| YES

|SSSI

|The site includes several areas in two different SSSIs, Danbury Common

|100px|alt=Fingringhoe Wick

|Fingringhoe

| YES

|EWTVC, SSSI

|100px|alt=Fobbing Marsh

|Fobbing

| YES

|The site is mainly grazing marshes, but there are also areas of rough grassland, saltmarsh, seawalls and reedbed. Flowering plants include hairy buttercup, knotted hedge-parsley and the nationally rare least lettuce. There are breeding birds such as corn buntings and yellow wagtails.

|100px|alt=Gernon Bushes

|Epping

| YES

|SSSI, NCR

|This site is ancient coppice, with old hornbeam pollards, and many ponds which were created for gravel extraction. There are areas of marsh with large patches of the unusual marsh fern, and other plants include marsh marigold and ragged robin.

|100px|alt=Great Holland Pits

|Great Holland

| YES

|This area of former gravel pits has grassland, ancient woodland, ponds and wet depressions. There are water birds such as kingfishers, coots and little grebes, and flowering plants include moschatels and carline thistles.

|100px|alt=Shoebury Ranges

|Shoeburyness

| PP

|LNR, SM, SSSI

|Gunners Park, which is named for its former military use, has over twelve habitats, including coastal grassland and ancient sand dunes. Rare insects include sandwich click beetles, while there are unusual plants such as bulbous meadow-grass. There is a wide range of migrating birds.

|100px|alt=Hanningfield Reservoir

|Chelmsford

| YES

|EWTVC,

! scope="row"|Horndon Meadow

|100px|alt=Horndon Meadow

|Stanford-le-Hope

| YES

|This site is an unimproved hay meadow, which has around eighty flower species, such as green-winged orchids, yellow rattles, musk mallows and black knapweeds. Other plants include adder's tongue ferns.

|100px|alt=Howlands Marsh

|St Osyth

| YES

|NCR, SSSI