Print pageSeasonal highlights
Each season brings a different experience at our nature reserves. In spring, the air is filled with birdsong as they compete to establish territories and attract a mate. In summer, look out for young birds making their first venture into the outside world. Autumn brings large movements of migrating birds - some heading south to a warmer climate, others seeking refuge in the UK from the cold Arctic winter. In winter, look out for large flocks of birds gathering to feed, or flying at dusk to form large roosts to keep warm.
Spring
With the start of the breeding season many waders can be seen performing their display flights and calls, including lapwings and snipe. Skylarks fill the air with song over the fields and merse, and natterjack toads call in a 'dusk chorus'. Barnacle and pink-footed geese gather in huge flocks before departing for their northern breeding grounds.
Summer
Otters, badgers and roe deer are easiest to see at this time of year. Warblers sing by day and barn owls hunt at dusk. The plants of the shoreline and merse are in full flower. Butterflies abound and dragonflies hawk the ditches. Seabirds such as gannets, terns and shearwaters come close inshore and afford good views.
Autumn
Svalbard barnacle geese arrive in huge flocks in late September and early October. Thousands of ducks such as teals, wigeons and pintails arrive from northern Europe. Feeding waders and shelducks follow the tide in and out on the sandflats. Migrating waders such as greenshanks, sandpipers and godwits rest and feed on the wetlands.
Winter
Huge flocks of farmland birds, including tree sparrows and twites, feed in the stubbles and wild bird cover crops. Watch for birds sent skyward as peregrines, merlins, hen harriers and short-eared owls pass overhead, hunting over the reserve. Whooper swans and shovelers feed on the wetland. Groups of divers, grebes, scaups and common scoters swim near the shore at high tide.