There is an abundance of wildlife in and around Burnham’s parks.

Animals include adders (take care in summer walking through long grass) foxes, badgers, water voles and rabbits (though Myxomatosis is still widespread in this area).

Skylarks can be heard and seen singing high up in the spring dawn light. Blackbirds, thrushes, finches and tits populate the trees and hedgerows. A flash of iridescent blue will reveal kingfishers in the fleets and along the foreshore. Raptors are also spotted occasionally..

Partly as a result of the Wallasea Wetlands Project there is a growing variety of seabirds and waders on the river, including black-headed gulls, herring gulls, terns (diving for fish) cormorants, redshanks, oyster catchers, bartailed godwits, sandpipers, dunlin, herons, egrets, Brent geese, Canada geese, swans and ducks, including Mallard, shelduck and the rarer red-breasted merganser.

Even the avocet, whose striking upturned bill made it the symbol of the RSPB is increasingly seen to strut the foreshore.

See also The Saltmarsh Trail.