RSPB: Saltholme

If you’re new to birdwatching, Saltholme is the perfect place to start. These family-friendly wetlands feature a vibrant Visitor Centre, new hides and screens, a cafe, play area and accessible trails, helping you discover lots of wildlife.

Designed to put you at the heart of the action, the site has four wildlife viewing hides, along with viewing screens and a viewing gallery in the visitor centre, to help you get closer to wildlife. But that’s not all – from early spring to mid-summer, plants and flowers bloom in the walled garden, designed by gardener Chris Beardshaw.

Out on the reserve, reedbeds are the beating heart of Saltholme. Here, Water Rails, Reed Buntings and Reed Warblers thrive. Elsewhere you can explore pools, wet grasslands and a meadow, teeming with life. You’ll find one of the UK’s largest inland breeding colonies of Common Tern, which arrive each spring and nest on the cockleshell-covered islands in our open pools. The wet grasslands are home to nationally important numbers of wintering wildfowl and waders, including Golden Plover, Lapwing and Wigeon, which graze the grass and seek out minibeasts.