With trees covered in apples and grasses full of wildflowers, make sure to visit this little slice of picturesque countryside

Danbury Ridge Nature Reserves are a wonderful mosaic of woodland, common, heathland, streams and bogs

On the edge of the Stour Estuary, you'll find the flourishing Copperas Wood Nature Reserve, filled with blooming wild flowers in the spring

Listen out for the drumming of woodpeckers, the singing trills of the nightingale and warblers and even the sounds of wood ant colonies scuttling along.

A beautiful mosaic habitat, Cockaynes Wood is situated in an area which was once extensively used for sand and gravel extraction and now supports a whole array of amazing wildlife

One of the largest remaining areas of ancient woodland in South East Essex, this reserve is one of the few sites in the UK where the Heath Fritillary butterfly is flourishing

One of the earliest ancient woods recorded in south-east Essex, this woodland is an important wildlife corridor in the Daws Heath woodland landscape