Crunching on to the shingle beach path, Snettisham’s vastness is right in your face. The shoreline extends left and right, while the expanse of The Wash estuary stretches to a distant horizon, both topped by huge skies that promise warming sunrises and fiery sunsets.
The openness frees your spirit, and that’s even before the ‘Snettisham spectacular’ has commenced.
Where is Snettisham?
RSPB Snettisham is located on the west coast of Norfolk, England, near the village of Snettisham, situated on the eastern shore of The Wash, a large estuary where several rivers meet the North Sea.
What is the Snettisham spectacular?
From late summer through autumn and winter, high spring tides provide a scintillating wildlife experience that is firmly established on Norfolk’s tourist trail.
The supporting act is brief but intense. At dawn, tens of thousands of pink-footed geese depart their coastal slumber pad for feeding grounds inland, their yelping skeins fissuring the sky.
Pacing your walk with the incoming tide, stride south past water-filled pits where cormorants and grebes dive for fish, on past the skeleton of a wooden jetty that creaks into the mudflats, until you reach the saltmarsh.
As rising waters smother the gloopy feeding grounds of up to 100,000 migratory shorebirds, so the air fills with feather and sound. Groups of oystercatchers pipe hysterically as they wing over your head to assume position on the banks of the southernmost lagoon.
Waders tear overhead to join them, curlews bubble away, turnstones quip, dunlins wheeze and redshanks shriek. Best of all, thousands of knots cloud through the air, billowing and whirling, flashing silver and white – the shorebird equivalent of a starling murmuration – until they too settle below Shore Hide, waiting out peak water with some much-needed shut-eye.
For dates and times when you'll have most chance of seeing the Snettisham Spectacle, download an information sheet from the reserves homepage.
Where are the best places to see the Snettisham Spectacle?
Also called the Wader Spectacles, the RSPB recommend three main viewing points:
- First Glimpse of The Wash: 1.3 km from the car park. Climb the sea wall steps to see the tide push the birds together.
- The Wader Watch Point: 2.2 km from the car park. Follow the path with The Wash on your right.
- Knot’s Landing: 3 km from the car park.
Looking for more days out inspiration in the area?
Check out our guides to Snettisham, Sandringham and the North Norfolk Coast, as well as the best walks in Norfolk and walking Hunstanton to Thornham.
