Wildlife
Cranmer Country Cottages is ideally located for luxury birdwatching breaks in Norfolk. Our rural setting is at the heart of the North Norfolk Natural Area of special interest and the Norfolk Coast ANOB . With some of the finest nature reserves in the country and its unique position on the east coast, Norfolk is one of Britain’s top birdwatching destinations – whether you are a seasoned ‘twitcher’ or enthusiastic amateur. There’s plenty to see whatever the time of year – from barn owls to kingfishers, avocets to bearded tits. Norfolk is a birdwatchers’ paradise and a wonderful place for children to begin to learn about their feathered friends. With child-friendly visitor centres and nature reserves, you’ll find all the help and information you need to get started.
As far as accommodation goes our luxury Norfolk holiday cottage Coot sleeps 2 and is an ideal birdwatching bolthole, alternatively our larger holiday cottages can offer space to accommodate special interest birdwatching groups in communicating cottages of up to 12. the Green Room provides a meeting facility for lectures, talks and film showing. Our private farmland setting provides an opportunity to observe farm birds from the doorstep and the wonderful dunes of Holkham are within cycling distance along the Roman road passing our door.
Birdwatching at Cranmer
We are lucky enough to have a fantastic community reserve right on our doorstep – Sculthorpe Moor Nature Reserve a peaceful and beautiful place that never feels crowded, you can observe tawny and barn owls, kingfishers, buzzards, bullfinches, willow and marsh tits and great spotted woodpeckers throughout the year. – an excellent chance to get close to birds throughout a patchwork of habitats including wet woodland, hazel coppice, reed and sedge beds, open water and wet meadow. The site was created by and managed by the Hawk and Owl Trust. This special place provides every one with a real opportunity to get involved with the natural environment. Families and wildlife watchers are made very welcome, it is a great place to relax and watch nature at work at any time of year. Boardwalks guiding you through the reserve make easy access for everyone including people using wheelchairs.
The reserve host a range of special events throughout the year, including beginners & intermediate guides to nature photography, guided walks and talks – http://hawkandowl.org/events/categories/sculthorpe/
As a sign of our appreciation and support for this special community reserve in Sculthorpe we ask our guests if they would like to make a small donation via our Visitor Payback Scheme for 2016. For every £1.00 donation we will match it with £1.00 from Cranmer Country Cottages. You can make your donation – just tick the box in the extras section when making your booking.
Birdwatching in Norfolk
Closeby you will find the Holkham Nature Reserve vast, with rugged coastal wetlands, saltmarsh, dunes, pinewoods and scrub, grazing marsh and foreshore. The reserve land stretches from Burnham Norton to Blakeney and covers about 3,706 hectares. It is possible to explore most of the area by following footpaths from the main car parks. The core section of the reserve, from Wells to Holkham Bay, is crisscrossed by paths allowing access through the pine woodland.
Another visitor birdwatching family favourite within easy reach is Pensthorpe – recently voted Norfolk’s Best large attraction 2014/2015 – a centre for wildfowl set in 500 acres of beautiful countryside. There are miles of peaceful nature trails to explore through ancient fen meadows, woodland and a superb series of lakes. Pensthorpe is home to Europe’s finest collection of waterfowl including endangered exotic waterfowl from around the world, and was also the home of BBC Springwatch for 2008 and 2009. More recently Pensthorpe has defined itself as a centre of nature discovery for young children with its indoor and outdoor adventure play houses with nature inspired play themes. http://www.pensthorpe.com/
Further along the North Norfolk coast is the home of the Norfolk Wildlife Trust Holme dunes which contains a huge variety of species, such as avocets, ringed plovers redshanks, curlews and lapwings. There is also Cley and Salthouse Marshes for black-tailed godwits, ruffs, snow buntings and several thousand brent geese. The wetland nature reserve at RSPB Titchwell Marsh attracts all kinds of birds including the marsh harrier. The Wash is one of the country’s most important winter feeding areas for waders and wildfowl. The best place to see these thousands of birds coming into roost is RSPB Snettisham nature reserve
Conservation at Cranmer
As part of our commitment to Green Tourism and responsible land management farmland at Cranmer Country Cottages is being managed in a sustainable way with the help of conservation body Natural England and the Higher Level Stewardship scheme. Our HLS scheme is designed specifically to integrate sustainable and environmental farming methods to enhance the wildlife and the landscape of the area, which is shared by the visitors to Cranmer Country Cottages. This will benefit farmland birds, preserve biodiversity and protect farmland bird species in decline in Britain. Species identified at Cranmer Country Cottages include stone curlew, grey partridge, lapwing, tree sparrow and turtle dove.
RSPB volunteer & Farmer Alliance 2011 & RSPB conservation monitoring project 2015 – As part of farm birds monitoring project managed by the RSPB we received surveys of our farmland to identify species of concern who have made their homes at Cranmer. Notably the Skylark and Reed Bunting were in evidence during spring/summer with other interesting species visitors in the winter.
