Natural England - Holkham: what makes it special?

Holkham: what makes it special?

There are five very distinct types of habitat at Holkham.

Foreshore

You never know what you might find along Holkham NNR’s foreshore. Perhaps you’ll be lucky enough to see a seal popping up in the waves, or stumble across a jellyfish that’s been washed up in a storm.

The extensive sandy beaches provide ideal conditions for nesting shorebirds including the striking black and white oystercatcher, with its crimson beak, dumpy ringed plovers and noisy but elegant terns.

Saltmarsh

Saltmarshes are built up by layer upon layer of sediment washed in by the sea and only specialist plants like samphire and shrubby sea-blite can survive on these salty lower mudflats.

Higher up, among the grazing birds, there’s a wealth of plants such as sea asters and great carpets of sea lavender, which create a misty-blue haze around Holkham Bay and its creeks and saltings in the summer.

If you can, try and time a winter visit to take in the dipping sun, which along with the shimmering flocks of wildfowl and the wide horizon of the saltmarshes, combine to create a great wildlife spectacle.

Dunes

Holkham’s impressive sand dunes are a harsh and constantly changing landscape where only the toughest can survive. You’ll soon spot marram grass, which helps bind the sand together, but look out too for sea holly and carline thistle which also manage to thrive in the extreme conditions.

Solitary wasps and bees, as well as butterflies such as the grayling, small heath and common blue also love the dunes. And on spring evenings natterjack toads emerge from their burrows and join a noisy chorus at the spawning pools.

Pinewoods and scrub

The silence of the pinewoods comes as a surprise after a walk along the shore. Three kinds of pines grow in the woods, Corsican, with a grey trunk and small cones, Scots, with their distinctive orange upper trunk, and maritime, with large cones in tree-top clusters.

The pines are edged by brambles and other scrubland plants which are a great nesting site for warblers, while in spring the early flowers attract butterflies like the brimstone and the peacock, followed later by the orange tip, meadow brown and large skipper.

Freshwater grazing marsh

There’s also a long strip of reclaimed saltmarsh at Holkham, which is now used as summer grazing for cattle. The grazing helps to create ideal conditions for lapwings and other waders, which breed in the grassland, and ducks, which nest along the ditches, where grey heron also lurk looking for food. Graceful avocets feed in the scrapes and, if you’re lucky, you could marvel as a ghost-like barn owl set off to find food.