Five of the best wildlife-spotting trips you can take on home soil
Wild Isles Sunday 7.00pm BBC1
ED GRENBY - 10 March 2023
Dolphins on your doorstep? Killer whales around the corner? Badgers in your backyard? It might all sound a little improbable, but David Attenborough’s new Sunday-evening series, Wild Isles, reminds us that we don’t need to hike halfway round the world to see Earth’s most incredible animals: they’re right here in and around the UK.
Here are five of the best wildlife-spotting trips you can take on home soil.
CORNWALL: DOLPHINS, SHARKS AND WHALES
A sighting of Mother Nature’s smiliest creation, bar Ainsley Harriott, can brighten up even the greyest mornings – and you’ve got an excellent chance of laying eyes on a dolphin or two (hundred) off Cornwall. The Duchy’s waters now host several “superpods” of up to 400 individuals, and the many boat trips leaving from Padstow and Penzance, on Cornwall’s north and south shores, respectively, have an excellent hit rate. That said, even landlubbers can get lucky: from April to October, dolphins can often be spotted feeding at low tide within naked-eye distance of Sennen Cove, near Land’s End. Meanwhile, Mount’s Bay – the great sweep of Cornish coastline where Penzance sits – also offers the chance of seeing grey seal, basking shark, minke whale and the dolphin’s close cousin, the harbour porpoise. Can’t hack Cornwall’s crowds? Cardigan Bay in Wales hosts 250-odd bottlenose dolphins, easily seen from boat trips that also include a brush with razorbills, cormorants and guillemots. cornwallwildlifetrust.org.uk
NORFOLK: BUTTERFLIES AND BIRDS
It’s the seals at Blakeney Point that steal the limelight – and not even the most scientifically inclined could deny that the big-eyed beauties are adorable – but it’s Norfolk’s birds that get the botanists going. Holkham is home to Britain’s largest colony of spoonbills, and autumn sees sandpipers, egret, ibis and owls migrating across the county’s coastline. The varied sand-duneand-saltmarsh habitat means birders can tick off as many as 100 species in just a weekend, though top of the I-Spy list for many is the stone curlew (watch them soaring out of the reach of predatory stoats around Weeting Heath). At Winterton, on the seaside, you can find natterjack toads; and on the Broads, keep your eyes peeled for swallowtails, which are among the country’s rarest and most delicately patterned butterflies. norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk
DORSET: BADGERS, PONIES AND MINIBEASTS
Why visit a plain old National Nature Reserve when you could visit a “super” National Nature Reserve? Purbeck Heaths NNR was created in 2020 when three existing NNRs were combined, and more land added, to make an 8,000-acre protected area “on a landscape scale” – and it’s now one of the UK’s most biodiverse spots. What can you see? Rare Dartford warblers (the tiny, rust-breasted bird was once down to just ten pairs in Britain, but there are now a few thousand), spooky-voiced nightjars (look for them at dusk in heath or young woodland), large marsh grasshoppers, silver-studded blue butterflies, mottled bee-flies, Purbeck mason wasps, sand lizards and smooth snakes (an actual reptile, not a bar-room lothario). Want something (whisper it) cuter? Just up the road near Cerne Abbas are a couple of private hides specially designed for watching badgers (not to mention rabbits, deer and foxes). And if you have no luck there, there are of course 5,000-odd ponies roaming more or less wild and more or less unmissable across the open New Forest. dorsetaonb.org.uk/purbeck-heaths-nationalnature-reserve badgerwatchdorset.co.uk
THE HEBRIDES: SEALS, ORCAS AND EAGLES
The term “rubber-necking” gets a whole new meaning on these Scottish islands, as naturelovers switch their gaze from golden eagles above to the killer whales below. Truth be told, both of those spectacular species are rare – but by no means impossible – spots out here, but there are some old reliables, too. Basing yourself on the Isle of Eigg (or “Mini Eigg”, if you like: it’s a mere five miles by three in size), you’d be unlucky not to see sweet-faced seals and playful porpoises. The bizarre, balloon-faced sunfish can be seen here, too, as well as basking sharks – which look either comically yawn-mouthed or menacingly wide-jawed, depending on whether you’re prey or not. (Don’t worry, despite being the planet’s second largest shark, they eat only plankton.) Then there are the orcas (also known as killer whales) and – look to the skies! – buzzards and golden and sea eagles. The Scottish Wildlife Trust organises guided walks in summer (but, if the Hebrides are a bridge/ferry-ride too far, Northumberland’s Farne Islands are also great for grey seal- and seabird-spotting). isleofeigg.org scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk
ANGLESEY: PUFFINS AND PORPOISES
The clue’s in the name at Puffin Island, a sanctuary and nesting site for the amusing little birds. They nest here from April to July, raising their (yes!) pufflings, and you can lose whole delightful days watching their ungraceful bottom-first landings into cliffside nests. Come outside that season and you’ll find the Menai Strait, which separates Anglesey from mainland north Wales, also hosts seals, porpoises and a dozen different bird species. It’s all viewable by boat trip from Beaumaris – or you could hop across the Irish Sea to Rathlin Island, six miles north of the Antrim coast, where the puffin season runs from April to July. northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk visitanglesey.co.uk
Dolphins on your doorstep? Killer whales around the corner? Badgers in your backyard? It might all sound a little improbable, but David Attenborough’s new Sunday-evening series, Wild Isles, reminds us that we don’t need to hike halfway round the world to see Earth’s most incredible animals: they’re right here in and around the UK.
Here are five of the best wildlife-spotting trips you can take on home soil.
CORNWALL: DOLPHINS, SHARKS AND WHALES
A sighting of Mother Nature’s smiliest creation, bar Ainsley Harriott, can brighten up even the greyest mornings – and you’ve got an excellent chance of laying eyes on a dolphin or two (hundred) off Cornwall. The Duchy’s waters now host several “superpods” of up to 400 individuals, and the many boat trips leaving from Padstow and Penzance, on Cornwall’s north and south shores, respectively, have an excellent hit rate. That said, even landlubbers can get lucky: from April to October, dolphins can often be spotted feeding at low tide within naked-eye distance of Sennen Cove, near Land’s End. Meanwhile, Mount’s Bay – the great sweep of Cornish coastline where Penzance sits – also offers the chance of seeing grey seal, basking shark, minke whale and the dolphin’s close cousin, the harbour porpoise. Can’t hack Cornwall’s crowds? Cardigan Bay in Wales hosts 250-odd bottlenose dolphins, easily seen from boat trips that also include a brush with razorbills, cormorants and guillemots. cornwallwildlifetrust.org.uk
NORFOLK: BUTTERFLIES AND BIRDS
It’s the seals at Blakeney Point that steal the limelight – and not even the most scientifically inclined could deny that the big-eyed beauties are adorable – but it’s Norfolk’s birds that get the botanists going. Holkham is home to Britain’s largest colony of spoonbills, and autumn sees sandpipers, egret, ibis and owls migrating across the county’s coastline. The varied sand-duneand-saltmarsh habitat means birders can tick off as many as 100 species in just a weekend, though top of the I-Spy list for many is the stone curlew (watch them soaring out of the reach of predatory stoats around Weeting Heath). At Winterton, on the seaside, you can find natterjack toads; and on the Broads, keep your eyes peeled for swallowtails, which are among the country’s rarest and most delicately patterned butterflies. norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk
DORSET: BADGERS, PONIES AND MINIBEASTS
Why visit a plain old National Nature Reserve when you could visit a “super” National Nature Reserve? Purbeck Heaths NNR was created in 2020 when three existing NNRs were combined, and more land added, to make an 8,000-acre protected area “on a landscape scale” – and it’s now one of the UK’s most biodiverse spots. What can you see? Rare Dartford warblers (the tiny, rust-breasted bird was once down to just ten pairs in Britain, but there are now a few thousand), spooky-voiced nightjars (look for them at dusk in heath or young woodland), large marsh grasshoppers, silver-studded blue butterflies, mottled bee-flies, Purbeck mason wasps, sand lizards and smooth snakes (an actual reptile, not a bar-room lothario). Want something (whisper it) cuter? Just up the road near Cerne Abbas are a couple of private hides specially designed for watching badgers (not to mention rabbits, deer and foxes). And if you have no luck there, there are of course 5,000-odd ponies roaming more or less wild and more or less unmissable across the open New Forest. dorsetaonb.org.uk/purbeck-heaths-nationalnature-reserve badgerwatchdorset.co.uk
THE HEBRIDES: SEALS, ORCAS AND EAGLES
The term “rubber-necking” gets a whole new meaning on these Scottish islands, as naturelovers switch their gaze from golden eagles above to the killer whales below. Truth be told, both of those spectacular species are rare – but by no means impossible – spots out here, but there are some old reliables, too. Basing yourself on the Isle of Eigg (or “Mini Eigg”, if you like: it’s a mere five miles by three in size), you’d be unlucky not to see sweet-faced seals and playful porpoises. The bizarre, balloon-faced sunfish can be seen here, too, as well as basking sharks – which look either comically yawn-mouthed or menacingly wide-jawed, depending on whether you’re prey or not. (Don’t worry, despite being the planet’s second largest shark, they eat only plankton.) Then there are the orcas (also known as killer whales) and – look to the skies! – buzzards and golden and sea eagles. The Scottish Wildlife Trust organises guided walks in summer (but, if the Hebrides are a bridge/ferry-ride too far, Northumberland’s Farne Islands are also great for grey seal- and seabird-spotting). isleofeigg.org scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk
ANGLESEY: PUFFINS AND PORPOISES
The clue’s in the name at Puffin Island, a sanctuary and nesting site for the amusing little birds. They nest here from April to July, raising their (yes!) pufflings, and you can lose whole delightful days watching their ungraceful bottom-first landings into cliffside nests. Come outside that season and you’ll find the Menai Strait, which separates Anglesey from mainland north Wales, also hosts seals, porpoises and a dozen different bird species. It’s all viewable by boat trip from Beaumaris – or you could hop across the Irish Sea to Rathlin Island, six miles north of the Antrim coast, where the puffin season runs from April to July. northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk visitanglesey.co.uk
ED GRENBY
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