Lindisfarne National Nature Reserve

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Overview

Tidal mudflats, saltmarshes and dunes combine to create the Lindisfarne NNR, a place which is home to fascinating plants and to a food supply that attracts bird visitors from thousands of miles away. The reserve includes the dunes of Holy Island itself, which can only be reached at low tide across the causeway. Shifting sands and tides combine to create the 13 square miles of dunes, saltmarsh and mudflats of the reserve. The sands of the dunes are stabilised by marram grass, and support many other plants, including 11 species of orchid. Also present is the Lindisfarne helleborine, which is found only on Holy Island. The abundance of wildflowers provides a valuable food source for moths, butterflies such as dark green fritillary and ringlet, and other insects. In autumn the skies fill will migratory birds escaping the cold Arctic winters. Among them are the light-bellied Brent geese which travel from Svarlbard (Spitsbergen) to feed on the rich mudflats. This is their only regular wintering site in Britain, accommodating an astonishing 40 per cent of the world population.

Location

Holy Island

About the area

If it’s history you’re after, there’s heaps of it in Northumberland. On Hadrian’s Wall you can imagine scarlet-cloaked Roman legionaries keeping watch for painted Pictish warriors while cursing the English weather and dreaming of home.