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This Essex Wildlife Trust reserve lies within the Naze public open space. An area for blackthorn, bramble thickets and rough grassland it is home to hundreds of birds and animals. A walk through the reserve and you’ll also find four ponds or 'scrapes', three of them excavated since the reserve was established.

Nesting birds include lapwing, redshank, and sedge and reed warblers, the latter having colonised the reeds that were introduced to one of the new pools. Beyond the reserve is the 1.5 mile long shingle beach, ending at Stone Point, which is an important nesting site for little tern and other shorebirds.

It is an important landfall for migrants – for example the firecrest, red-backed shrike and barred warbler. It also attracts a good variety of winter visitors. The most common sight on the reserve is that of a twitcher, waiting to catch a glimpse of a rare bird.

Join the concrete path

The reserve is named after the late John Weston, a leading Essex naturalist who was warden of the reserve until his death in 1984.
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Flowering plants and grasses include parsley water-dropwort, slender thistle, pepper saxifrage, fenugreek and bush grass.

Being so close to the shore, it inevitably attracts shore-loving insects, including emperor moth, cream-spot tiger moth and saltern ear moths.

• On joining the tarmac path from the cliff top, bear left on to it to walk on top of an embankment, above pools and marshes and along the edge of the Essex Wildlife Trust nature reserve.
• Where this tarmac path ends, bear left again to continue along a pleasant grassy path - still on the top of an embankment - above Cormorant Creek and the surrounding marshland. The Naze Tower dominates the skyline to the left.