Bird Watching on Isle of Wight

With 300 square kilometres of special environmental protection, nature reserves and wildlife sites and 150 kilometres of spectacular coastline to explore, the Isle of Wight is an amazing place for birds!

Over 200 species

Over 200 species are recorded each year, from seacliff-nesting guillemots to forest-dwelling nightjars, and there’s something special to see at any time of year. In the spring the Island bursts with birdsong as warblers and nightingales join the resident chorus; there are dawn walks on offer for the brave and sleepless as part of the famous Isle of Wight Walking Festival. In the summer the beaches are alive with terns plunge-diving for fish while the towns and villages resound with screaming swifts. Huge numbers of ducks, geese and waders move down into the Solent for the winter, filling the north coast estuaries with noisy spectacle.

One of the most fascinating things about the Islands birdlife is what’s missing! We don’t have tawny owls, nuthatches or lesser spotted woodpeckers for example. These familiar birds are almost unknown here simply because of our 7000 years of separation from the mainland, making it harder for more sedentary species to colonize.

Best-kept birding secret

The Island sits within one of Europe’s major migration flyways and is a vital landfall for spring birds heading north and needing to stop and refuel. Wheatears, ring ouzel, redstarts and pied flycatchers pop up all around the coast while magnificent ospreys will stay to fish for days at a time. The autumn return movement is more concentrated and very large numbers of migrants funnel across the Island, their last dry land before the inevitable risky sea crossing. This visible migration is an amazing experience and the sight of tens of thousands of swallows, streaming seemingly endlessly overhead, is never to be forgotten!

Its flyway location also makes the Island a great place for national rarities, though still underwatched, making it the UK’s best-kept birding secret! Who knows what you might turn up if you visit in the magic months of April, May, September or October!

Tips for a great birdwatching holiday

• Head for Newport, the county town, and look for the peregrines on St. Thomas’s Church, one of the Island’s most beautiful buildings.
• Take an evening walk in Parkhurst Forest to hear the mysterious sounds of displaying woodcock.
• Visit Culver in the autumn to see bushes full of blackcaps and other warblers heading south and watch the amazing congregation of swallows, house martins and sand martins around the Yarborough Obelisk.
• Spend time in the National Trust’s Newtown bird hide to see Mediterranean gulls and a host of waders and terns.
• Seawatch from St. Catherine’s Point for eider, scoter, gulls, skuas, divers, gannets and shearwaters plus the occasional pod of bottlenose dolphins!
• Explore the Undercliff and high downs from St Catherine’s to Bonchurch for migrating birds of prey.
• Drive down the beautiful Military Road, stop at one of the handy car parks and take a wander inland to see a wealth of farmland birds now sadly in decline elsewhere: yellowhammers, linnets and skylarks a-plenty!
• Hire bikes in the Bay and explore National Cycleway 23 from Sandown to the pretty villages of Alverstone and Newchurch, look for water rails, reed warblers and cuckoos and listen out for nightingales.

If you love wildlife, you’ll love the Isle of Wight!