Turtle Creek Preserve

The Nature Conservancy established the Turtle Creek Preserve thanks to a generous gift of 89 acres made in partial interests from 1971 to 1978 by the late Dorothy S. Bowles, the wife of the former Connecticut Governor Chester Bowles Sr. While TNC is no longer the owner, this property remains in conservation ownership. 

Straddling the Essex/Old Saybrook town line, the Turtle Creek Preserve occupies the mouth of Turtle Creek, a tidal estuary that is part of the globally recognized wetlands complex known as the Tidelands of the Connecticut River. The property also boasts  wild rice and eel grass, and mountain laurel thickets and beech groves. Depending on the season, basking turtles can be seen at Deitsch’s Pond in the southeast corner of the preserve. Also look for ducks and wading birds from the beach on South Cove.