Havergate Island

Havergate Island can be found 2 miles south of Orford. To get there, we take you from Orford on our boat 'October Storm.' The boat trip down the River Ore to Havergate Island will take around 20 minutes. The island, spanning around 500 acres, sits within the estuary and is home to six large shallow salty lagoons, along with other habitats including saltmarshes, vegetated shingles, and mudflats.

Havergate Island is nationally important all year round, supporting thousands of passage, wintering, and coastal breeding birds. During the colder months, it becomes a site for hundreds of wintering waders and ducks. Notably, it hosts one of Suffolk's most important large gull breeding colonies during spring. Remarkably, in recent years, it has become an established site for breeding Spoonbills, with their numbers growing stronger every year. Additionally, the island is home to our well-known and much-loved brown hares all year round.

Booking Information

If you would like to visit Havergate Island you must pre-book onto one of our trips which can be found on our booking page. You'll find the blue link 'RSPB Havergate Island Events' at the bottom of this page.

We offer a variety of different trips, guided or freeflow, as well as specialised photography sessions. From August to April, we're generally able to offer one or two trips a month which sell out quickly! We list events with tickets no earlier than 6 months prior to the trip date. A great way to visit the island is to book onto our Havergate adventure trips. These take place over the August bank holiday weekend (23 - 25 2025), with several boat crossing and tours daily. We do not run trips to the Island from May - July due to the breeding season. 

We can also organise private trips for up to 12 people between August and March. If this is of interest, please send us an email (address below).

⚠ Please note before booking that the island is accessed by a narrow jetty (0.75m wide) with no handrails. A reasonable level of fitness is required for embarking and disembarking the boat and we recommend wearing stout footwear/wellies. The jetty can be wet and slippery at times depending on the state of the tide. There is a single 2km long linear track connecting all of the hides and paths can be wet, muddy and uneven in places.

⚠ Prices. Please note, that the 'Prices' tab on this site displays cost information for visiting the Island via a pre-booked trip. Please disregard the text advising to make payment at a visitor centre.