Birdwatching on the Norfolk Coast
The majority of the Norfolk coastline is designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, with a wonderful diversity of landscape including some of the finest sand dunes and saltmarshes in Britain.
The coast is a wonderful place to visit for birdwatchers as an amazing variety of species can be spotted throughout the year. In the autumn all kinds of species pass through the area on their way from the Arctic to warmer climates.
|  | | Go West
The Wash is England's largest tidal estuary and lies to the West of Norfolk. The area is a combination of deep and shallow water, saltmarshes and mudflats and is one of the country's most important winter feeding areas for waders and wildfowl.
As the water covers the vast mudflats of The Wash on a big tide, Snettisham Nature Reserve is the place to see thousands of wading birds coming in to roost. Tens of thousands of wading birds are pushed off their feeding grounds and onto the roost banks and islands in front of the RSPB hides - an incredible spectacle.
In the middle of winter, a dawn or dusk visit to Snettisham may reward you with the flight of thousands of pink-footed geese or visit in summer when you are likely to see large numbers of common terns and black-headed gulls.
| | In the North
The Norfolk Wildlife Trust's reserve at Holme Dunes is one of the north Norfolk coast's most attractive landscapes and the combination of mudflats, sand dunes, saltmarsh and reedbeds have an air of mysticism. It is an important bird-watching site where you can look for a huge variety of species including avocets, ringed plovers, redshanks, curlews and lapwings. Holme Dunes is another key site for winter wildfowl.
At Salthouse Marshes, further along the coast, a shingle bank protects the coastal grazing marshes and salt water lagoons from the voracious appetite of the North sea. Bird watchers can look out for black-tailed godwits, ruffs, redshanks and snow buntings as well as several thousand brent geese in the winter months
The wetland nature reserve at Titchwell Marsh is around 5 miles from Hunstanton. As you walk from the RSPB visitor centre to the sandy beach you will pass reedbeds and shallow lagoons which are managed specially to attract all manner of birds. One of the highlights of a visit to Titchwell in the summer is a potential sighting of a marsh harrier hunting over the reeds.
| | Further South
The Norfolk Wildlife Trust reserve at Martham, near Great Yarmouth contains some of the clearest water in the broads system. Keen birdwatchers may be able to spot bittern, bearded tit, marsh harrier, barn owl and water rail which all breed here.
Each year on North Denes beach at Great Yarmouth, the UK's largest colony of little terns breeds and to protect them the RSPB operates a special wardening scheme. The best time to see the terns is between mid-may and the end of July.
| | | | 
Useful Links
Keeping an eye on birds
For more information on bird conservation have a look at the British Trust for Ornithology's web site.
BTO
Tides are turning
A useful guide to tide tables.
Tide Prediction
Looking for a reserve?
This site has lots of information about nature reserves throughout Norfolk, and beyond.
Birds of Britain
|  | |
