Natural England - Holkham: seasonal highlights

Holkham: seasonal highlights

There's always something to see....

Summer highlights

  • An evening panorama from Gunhill at Burnham Overy

  • Orchids in the Wells Dell in late June or early July

  • Dashing flight of a dark green fritillary over the dune flowers

  • Little and common terns fishing in Wells Harbour

  • Dancing of male ghost swift moths at twilight

  • Purple haze of sea lavender across the saltings

There’s also great summer birdlife:

  • Ringed plover - 'broken-wing' distraction display as they entice you away from breeding sites

  • Oystercatchers - feeding chicks on the beach

  • Little terns - carrying fish to chicks in the tern colonies

  • Wheatears - feeding on the tide line on their spring migration

  • Swallow - migrating along the shoreline in spring and autumn

  • Meadow pipits and skylarks - feeding on the saltings

  • Arctic skua - chasing terns to steal fish

  • Marsh harriers - displaying and passing food mid-air

Winter specials

  • The tideline after a gale - lots of sculpted driftwood, stones etc

  • Dew on spiders' webs in October

  • Migrant birds, landing exhausted in the seablite bushes in late October

  • Thousands of pink-footed geese leaving their roosts at Wells sand flats and Holkham grazing marshes.

  • A peregrine or harrier scattering flocks of wildfowl

  • Dawn sunlight over Stiffkey Marshes, east of Wells

  • Mixed flocks of larks, finches and pipits in Holkham Bay

  • Hordes of wildfowl (pink-footed geese, white-fronted geese, Brent geese, wigeon) in the fields on either side of Lady Anne's Drive

Winter birds

  • Brent geese - feeding in Wells Harbour

  • Shelduck - searching for small crustaceans and molluscs in Holkham Bay

  • Redshank - feeding in shallow pools

  • Shore lark - searching actively on pioneer saltmarsh for seeds

  • Snow bunting - sometimes joining in mixed flocks with shore larks and twite

  • Black-headed gulls - thousands settling to roost at Wells

  • Sparrowhawk - shadowing feeding finch and lark flocks in Holkham Bay