Spurn is an iconic National Nature Reserve, famous for bird migration, but also for a wide range of other important wildlife and cultural heritage. Birds are the most visible migrants, but impressive movements of insects, including hoverflies, ladybirds, dragonflies and butterflies can occur.

A long, narrow, crooked finger of sand reaching out from the Holderness coast across the mouth of the mighty River Humber. This is Spurn, one of Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s most iconic nature reserves. It is a wildlife-rich mosaic of beach, mudflats, saltmarsh, dunes, grassland, open water, saline lagoons and native sea buckthorn scrub.

Due to its prominent position, huge numbers of birds pass through Spurn during the year. The numbers and types of birds varies from week to week and is influenced by the weather conditions. The adjacent Humber Estuary is of international importance for its vast numbers of wildfowl and wading birds, which can be seen on passage in spring and autumn and during the winter.

Spurn is similarly rich in other wildlife but this may not be obvious at first glance. Plants are the first feature noticed, with the marram grass-topped dunes interspersed with stunted elder and orange-berried seabuckthorn bushes. On the Humber side of Spurn, a strip of saltmarsh exists between the land and the mudflats, supporting colourful flowering plants including sea lavender, sea aster and sea rocket, along with common glasswort and eel grass. Curlew, grey plover and knot use the saltmarsh to roost at high tide. Look out for merlin and peregrine which cause panic among the flocks of roosting wading birds when they start to hunt. Shelduck and brent geese are conspicuous on the mudflats during the winter.

In spring and summer a range of wildflowers appear in the grassland areas which the Trust manages by grazing with sheep and cattle, and also by cutting.

Magenta pyramidal orchids grow here and closer inspection of short grass may reveal the rare suffocated clover. Sea holly grows amongst the dunes.

Roe deer are a regular sight in these grassy areas, particularly early in the morning, which is also a good time to see a fox. A look over the sea will not only reveal passing seabirds including locally breeding little tern in the summer but also a chance of a harbour porpoise or even a minke whale.