This feels like a classic Viking scenario. It’s a cold March afternoon and I’m standing on a wind-whipped northern beach, breakers thundering in beneath a menacing sky. In a movie, a line of sails would now be cresting the horizon, triggering cries of terror among the onlookers. Today, the only other onlooker is a distant dog-walker and the only cries are avian: the bubbling of curlews and piping of oystercatchers above the rattle of the wind in the fishing boats.
In fact, it’s these birds that have brought me here. I’m in Alnmouth, Northumberland, at the start of a self-guided birdwatching weekend with HF Holidays. My trip notes made no mention of Vikings – seafront parking spaces seemed more of a concern – and it’s been some 1,300 years since those unruly Norsemen first alighted here, prefiguring their invasion by ransacking Lindisfarne Priory just up the coast.
Today, things are quieter. Indeed, in 2019 Northumberland was named the nation’s ‘most tranquil area’ by the Campaign for Rural England. The golf course behind the dunes doesn’t appear to have seen much slaughter or pillage. Mind you, in wind like this, it can’t see much golf either.
The birds remain undeterred. As the tide recedes from the Aln Estuary, exposing glistening mud banks, waders swarm over the nutrient-laden gloop, dinky dunlins attacking it like sewing machines; larger bar-tailed godwits are more circumspect. Meanwhile, red-breasted mergansers fish the racing waters of the river outflow and black-headed gulls hunker down in hundreds on the sandspit beyond, individuals occasionally whisked skyward before wheeling back to settle.
“You know what they say,” says leader Kevin Hall, as I step into the warm embrace of Nether Grange and shrug off my dripping jacket. “When the wind is in the east, it’s neither fit for man nor beast.”
Nether Grange was a granary before its 1870s conversion into a spacious family house. Today, the plush interior – with grand staircase, ballroom and conservatory – makes a delightful base. As does the location. Alnmouth village, with its picturesque fishermen’s cottages tucked between estuary meander and sweeping beachfront, lies at the mouth of the River Aln, just downstream from Alnwick. This means fine walks right from the front door and rich pickings for birdwatchers.
It being a ‘self-guided’ weekend, we guests get to devise our own itineraries. But we are not short on guidance: downstairs, an information room displays OS maps, bird books, walking guides, tide tables and bus schedules, with Kevin and fellow leader Nigel Wood on hand to dispense local knowledge. I like this hands-off approach: none of us is corralled into an activity we wouldn’t have chosen. Plus, birding in big groups seldom works.
After dinner comes a presentation from local naturalist Martin Kitching, outlining what we can hope to see. He explains that the highlights are seasonal. This month there’s little point in visiting the Farne Islands, for example, as the massed ranks of puffins, terns, kittiwakes and other breeding seabirds – Northumberland’s best-known avian spectacle – won’t be back until April.
Besides, with strong easterlies forecast, no boats will be sailing this weekend. On the other hand, the wintering wildfowl and waders should still be cramming the coastal pools and marshes, with, if we’re lucky, the odd wandering raptor. Martin takes us through a map of top sites. The possibilities are enticing.
Saturday dawns windy but dry. Could be worse. I decide to postpone the exposed coastline to the north and instead head south to Druridge Bay, where old mining subsidence has created a series of sheltered pools in the lee of the dunes, some now Wildlife Trust reserves. I start at Creswell Pond, just 30 minutes’ drive from Alnmouth.
Before I reach the hide, I can hear the soft piping of teal and whistling of wigeon and, once inside, I raise the viewing flap on small flotillas of these colourful ducks, the drakes decked out in breeding finery. Lapwings and redshanks pick at the margins, shelduck sift the shallows and there‘s even a stately avocet at the centre. The more I look, the more I see. It’s a good start.
Next stop, working my way back north, is East Chevington. A long walk-in takes me past fields of hunched curlew and a scuttling covey of grey partridge – and I spy my first raptor, a distant marsh harrier quartering the wind-rippled reedbeds on uptilted wings. Martin says that bitterns and even otters are sometimes seen from the hide. I scrutinise the reed-fringed waterways in hope, managing to add heron and reed bunting to my list.
All morning, I’ve heard the muffled pounding of the sea. The beach seems a good bet for my packed lunch; perhaps I’ll spot some seabirds. I scramble over the dunes – only to be smacked in the face by those easterlies. Huge breakers nix any thought of sea watching. Anyway, it’s started raining. I return to the car, leaving the beach to a clockwork party of sanderlings that scurry along the surf and a single grey seal, apparently taking a breather.
My day ends at Hauxley Nature Reserve, just south of Amble, where I cradle a welcome cuppa at the visitor centre while peering at wildfowl through rain-streaked windows. The best action here is at the car park, where a feeding station attracts a frenzied rotation of hungry tits and finches. After a day staring at horizons, this change of scale is welcome. Best are the tree sparrows: a rarer chestnut-capped cousin of the familiar house sparrow. Driving out, I spy a field full of pink-footed geese and pull over to listen to their nasal chatter. These are winter visitors from the high Arctic; perhaps they’re discussing route maps for their imminent return.
Over dinner I compare notes with my companions. It’s been a good day all round, with a consensus that Northumberland is uncommonly packed with birds. And not only birds. “There are things in the world that are a complete mystery to us,” says Martin at tonight’s presentation, describing the amazing numbers of cetaceans now being recorded along the local coastline, from harbour porpoises and minke whales to an impressive population of bottle-nosed dolphins.
Indeed, the entire northeast coastline between the Moray Firth and Humber Estuary is now designated an IMMA (Important Marine Mammal Area), thus continuing a local tradition of conservation that started in 676, pre-Vikings, when St Cuthbert first introduced laws to protect the eiders of Lindisfarne.
At 9.30 the next morning, I’m watching one of these dapper ducks – the county bird of Northumberland – from the causeway to Holy Island. The tide is out, and my car makes a perfect hide from which to study the scattered army of curlews, godwits, knots, dunlins and other waders working the mud, while the eiders cruise the channels. Today has dawned no fairer than yesterday – if anything, it’s rougher – but I’ve nipped up the A1 to start at this historic location because the tide tables dictate I have only until 12.10 before the North Sea returns, cutting the island off for another six hours.
Halfway along the causeway, I pass the raised refuge hut built to house any unfortunate drivers who become trapped by the rising tide and have to abandon their vehicles. “The idiot box,” Martin calls it.
Holy Island is a bewitching place, steeped in the misty past. Today, sadly, time and tide rule out abbey and museum. Instead, I tramp the rolling dunes, hoping for one of the short-eared owls that supposedly frequent them. The owls lie low – it’s a bit blustery for vole hunting – but I do surprise a roe deer, which bounds out of the marram grass at my feet, and watch clifftop fulmars effortlessly riding the gale.
Hurrying back to my car, idiot box in mind, I also disturb a flock of brent geese from a roadside field. These noisy wildfowl are, like their pink-footed cousins, invaders from the north: miniature feathered Vikings that arrive every winter to plunder the coast – though their booty is more eel grass than jewelled goblets. They circle in ragged formation before alighting on the estuary to resume stuffing their busy beaks.
As I wander slowly back south, hugging the coast, the birds keep coming. At Bamburgh, beneath the imposing castle, I find a confiding party of purple sandpipers – another local winter special – foraging along the foam-flecked shoreline. At Low Newton, a National Trust heritage village, I watch a posse of drake goldeneye perform their head-bobbing courtship display to some uninterested females. And as I wind down into Alnmouth, I glimpse a barn owl dipping and wheeling over the glinting meanders, mothlike in the fading light.
In the fictional version of this adventure, perhaps with the Vikings defeated, Monday morning would dawn bright and sunny. It doesn’t – and, with a long drive ahead, I check out straight after breakfast. But before hitting the A1, I swing by Hauxley again for another peek at those tree sparrows. As soon as I alight, the birds abandon the feeders in a panicked flurry of wings. It’s not me, but a peregrine falcon that has chosen this precise moment to zoom overhead. A cracking bird – and it brings my weekend list to a respectable 78.
I pull away, turning south. The pink-footed geese are still in their field. Another fortnight and they’ll be hitting their own aerial motorway, turning north. But by then the first summer visitors will be arriving: puffins to the cliffs; swallows to the farms. With birds, every season brings its rewards. And Northumberland, it seems, brings more than most.
Need to know
Getting there: Alnmouth is around an hour’s drive north of Newcastle-upon-Tyne via the A1. Alnmouth station is on the main East Coast Newcastle–Edinburgh line, five minutes by taxi from Nether Grange.
Best time to go: For birds, every season has different attractions. Winter brings visiting wildfowl, waders and raptors; spring sees summer visitors arriving and breeding seabirds on the Farne Islands; autumn brings passing migrants, including rarities. Late summer is quietest for birds, but best for cetaceans – and weather.
Food: Regional specialities include the famous kippers and smoked seafood at nearby Craster. Trips with HF Holidays include breakfast, packed lunch and an excellent dinner menu.
Where to stay: The Northumberland base for HF Holidays is Nether Grange, a spacious country house overlooking the beach and estuary in picturesque Alnmouth.
How to do it: Book your Northumberland birdwatching break with HF Holidays (hfholidays.co.uk). These holidays are self-guided, which means bringing your own vehicle or using the good local public transport network.
Must-pack item: Binoculars are essential and a bird book helps. In all seasons, bring a waterproof day pack, wind and rain gear (for boat trips too), and walking boots.
Why go? Northumberland has one of Britain’s most beautiful coastlines, which is a key pit stop for migratory birds and a haven for seabirds and marine mammals.
Mike Unwin was a guest of HF Holidays.
Images © Dreamstime; Mike Unwin
