RSPB Dungeness

A dramatic sweep of shingle alive with marsh harriers, bitterns and flocks of seabirds and waders.

When

Reserve open dawn to dusk, year-round

Where

Boulderwall Farm, Dungeness Road, Romney Marsh, Kent, TN29 9PN

Info

Visit the official website for more details

Dungeness is England's only desert — a vast cuspate foreland of shingle ridges, sun-bleached fishing huts and an idiosyncratic scatter of black-tarred shacks, two lighthouses and a nuclear power station on the horizon. The RSPB reserve covers nearly 5,000 acres of flooded gravel pits and grazing marsh behind the shingle, and the bird life is extraordinary — marsh harriers quartering the reedbeds, bitterns booming in spring, terns and avocets breeding on the scrapes, thousands of wintering ducks and waders.

Dungeness is just 25 minutes from Rye. Stay riverside at The River Haven, head over for sunrise when the reserve is at its best, and pair the morning with lunch at the Pilot Inn or a ride on the Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway back up the coast.