Snettisham

One of the UK’s major wildlife spectacles occurs only a few times a year on the north Norfolk coast at Snettisham. Famed for its winter “Whirling Wader” spectaculars which only happen at super high tide events. I tried one of these dates in the summer as part of a wildlife weekend away!

I have seen plenty of videos online and on TV of the thousands and thousands of birds at Snettisham which are forced up from the vast mudflats of The Wash as the super high tide comes in. The birds run out of room to feed and they all head up together, murmurating in the sky before heading off to rest in nearby fields or lagoons. The main bird present here are “Knot” which are winter visitors. My visit was in the summer however so I wasn’t too sure what to expect with the Knot back in the Arctic for the summer…

The RSPB have a reserve at Snettisham and they advertise the dates that these super high tides are expected. I found a date in July which was A) on a weekend and B) not at an unsuitable time with no light for photography! They also provide a time to leave the car park by for the 2.2km walk to the viewing spot on the beach.

This particular day in early July, the time to set off was 0845 with the highest tide point expected at 10:35. Walking to the viewing spot we could see hundreds of birds feeding on the mudflats including plenty of gulls - Black Headed, Mediterranean, Herring and Common as well as Common and Sandwich Terns, Oystercatchers, Black Tailed and Bar Tailed Godwits, Avocet, Shelduck and Dunlin.

The tide was heading in quickly and we could see the large groups of birds marching up the mudflats, eventually taking flight in huge groups to reposition where some mud was still showing for them to get their beaks into. Many of them headed behind us to a couple of saline lagoons to rest up while the tide was in. The RSPB has a couple of hides here which allow good views of the resting flocks.

The “spectacular” was clearly missing those winter Knots, The images and videos I have seen of them flocking in their tens of thousands was in my mind but not in front of my eyes so my immediate thoughts about the experience was “I need to come back in winter!” It was still great to see what we saw but I left feeling slightly underwhelmed with my expectation vs reality - despite actually still seeing thousands of birds! The hide on the lagoon was awesome however with low level windows with flaps to allow a camera lens to poke through - this will be great when all those Knot are there! This time we did get to see lots of resting Dunlin and Godwits here however.

It was still a great morning out in nature, and even saw a Barn Owl hunting over the salt marshes most of the time we were there, only going to hide when a bit of wind and rain passed through. We also saw our first ever Muntjac Deer on the walk back! Overall, without a super high tide I’m not sure if Snettisham has much going on on a daily basis so a visit here should definitely coincide with those high tide dates - available on the RSPB reserve website over a year in advance. I have already pencilled in a revisit in February 2024!

From here it was a 20 minute drive to another RSPB reserve, so a quick stop to grab some lunch at Lidl on the way which is over the road from Norfolk Lavender with its vast fields of purple! I obviously had to grab a shot! That was it for Snettisham, a good start to our little Norfolk trip and now on to RSPB Titchwell Marsh…

Titchwell Marsh

Penny Hedge