_Natural wonder of Norfolk: Blakeney Point and its wildlife

Managed by the National Trust since 1912 and within the Norfolk Coast National Landscape, Blakeney Point is a 4-mile spit of flint-derived shingle and sand dunes, created by longshore drift across the River Glaven.

Designated as Blakeney National Nature Reserve, the area includes tidal mudflats, salt marshes and reclaimed farmland, known as the Fresh Marshes, as well as a host of wildlife. It is an import site for breeding birds, especially Sandwich, common and little terns, migrating birds in the Autumn and Winter, a favourable spot for samphire, or sea asparagus, and is home to the largest seal colony in England, with more than 10,000 Grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) and pups on the shoreline in Winter.

The eastern end begins at the termination point of the higher coast at Weybourne and extends to its far western point, seaward of Morston and Stiffkey, made of headland dunes.

The Point can be accessed on foot from Cley-next-the-Sea, but visitors, particularly those with dogs, should be wary of restrictions to protect nesting birds and fragile habitats.

Blakeney Point was Britain’s first coastal nature reserve, established in 1912.

The best way to visit the seals is by boat from the quays at Morston and Blakeney so you can get close to the inquisitive mammals without disturbing them. Boats go at high tide once a day in the winter and often twice a day in the summer, sometimes allowing passengers to go ashore. 

Other birds to look out for are black-headed and Mediterranean gulls, ringed plovers, oystercatchers, common redshanks, northern lapwings, sedge and reed warblers, and bearded tits. In the Winter the marshes are home to golden plovers, common shelduck, Eurasian wigeon, brent geese and common teal.

The Blakeney Point spit is still moving, slowing edging towards the mainland and also lengthening westwards. In recent years huge storm surges have washed away some of the dunes where the seals gave birth – they’ve moved around to the seashore. It’s not had an adverse effect – this is growing as the largest seal colony in the UK.