Stour Estuary is a 2,523 hectare biological and geological

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

which stretches from Manningtree to

Harwich Harwich is a town in Essex, England, and one of the Haven ports on the North Sea coast. It is in the Tendring district. Nearby places include Felixstowe to the north-east, Ipswich to the north-west, Colchester to the south-west and Clacton-on- ...

in Essex and

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

. It is also an internationally important wetland

Ramsar site A Ramsar site is a wetland site designated to be of international importance under the Ramsar Convention,8 ha (O) *** Permanent 8 ha (P) *** Seasonal Intermittent < 8 ha(Ts) **

Special Protection Area and a Nature Conservation Review site. It is part of the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and there are Geological Conservation Review sites in

Wrabness Wrabness is a small village and civil parish near Manningtree, Essex, England. The village is located six miles (10 km) west of Harwich. Wrabness railway station is served by trains on the Mayflower Line. Wrabness had a population of appr ...

, Stutton, and

Part of the site is managed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and a small area is

Wrabness Nature Reserve Wrabness Nature Reserve is a 27 hectare Local Nature Reserve on the south bank of the River Stour, west of Wrabness in Essex. It is managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust. This site has grassland, marsh, scrub and woodland. It has a diverse bird ...

, a Local Nature Reserve managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust. The estuary is nationally important for thirteen species of wintering wildfowl and three on autumn passage, for coastal saltmarsh, sheltered muddy shores, two scarce marine invertebrates, scarce plants and three geological sites. Birds include redshank,

black-tailed godwit The black-tailed godwit (''Limosa limosa'') is a large, long-legged, long-billed shorebird first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. It is a member of the godwit genus, ''Limosa''. There are four subspecies, all with orange head, neck and chest ...

and

dunlin The dunlin (''Calidris alpina'') is a small wader, formerly sometimes separated with the other "stints" in the genus ''Erolia''. The English name is a dialect form of "dunling", first recorded in 1531–1532. It derives from ''dun'', "dull brown ...

, and there are nationally important sponges, ascidians and

red algae Red algae, or Rhodophyta (, ; ), are one of the oldest groups of eukaryotic algae. The Rhodophyta also comprises one of the largest phyla of algae, containing over 7,000 currently recognized species with taxonomic revisions ongoing. The majority ...

has thirty ash layers dating to the Eocene

Harwich Formation The Harwich Formation is a geological formation found in the London Basin of southeastern England. It is Ypresian (early Eocene) in age. It lies unconformably on the Lambeth Group over most of its extent, but may overlie either the Thanet Formatio ...

and the succeeding London Clay.

has the most complete succession of ashes showing the importance of volcanism in southern England in the early Eocene. Stutton has fossils dating to the mid- Pleistocene, including extinct mammals such as

straight-tusked elephant The straight-tusked elephant (''Palaeoloxodon antiquus'') is an extinct species of elephant that inhabited Europe and Western Asia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene (781,000–30,000 years before present). Recovered individuals have reac ...

s, mammoths and giant deer.

References

{{coord, 51.954, 1.174, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Essex Nature Conservation Review sites Geological Conservation Review sites Ramsar sites in England Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Special Protection Areas in England