Hodbarrow RSPB Reserve is a nature reserve run by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds on the edge of the Lake District National Park in

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. C ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It is on the Duddon Estuary near the town of

Millom Millom is a town and civil parish on the north shore of the estuary of the River Duddon in southwest Cumbria, historically part of Cumberland, England. It is situated just outside the Lake District National Park, about north of Barrow-in-Furnes ...

History

The nature reserve was purchased by the RSPB in 1986. It occupies a site where iron ore was mined until the 1960s. The mining caused subsidence. Flooding increased after the closure of the mine, as the site was no longer dewatered. The reserve continues to be protected from the sea by a

seawall A seawall (or sea wall) is a form of coastal defense constructed where the sea, and associated coastal processes, impact directly upon the landforms of the coast. The purpose of a seawall is to protect areas of human habitation, conservation ...

built by John Aird & Co. and completed in 1905.

Habitats

Most of the area of the reserve is taken up by Hodbarrow Lagoon, a flooded part of the former mine, which is described as a "coastal lagoon". Some of the reserve is scrubland.

Facilities

There is a car park on the Millom side of the reserve from which you can walk to the seawall. (Alternatively, there is more direct pedestrian access to the seawall from Haverigg.) Lighthouse at edge of Hodbarrow lagoon - geograph

Lighthouse at edge of Hodbarrow lagoon - geograph

There is a

bird hide A bird hide (blind or bird blind in North America) is a shelter, often camouflaged, that is used to observe wildlife, especially birds, at close quarters. Although hides or hunting blinds were once built chiefly as hunting aids, they are now commo ...

on the seawall which gives views of the lagoon.

Protection status

The lagoon was originally a separate Site of Special Scientific Interest, notified in 1983. Following an amalgamation of SSSIs, it is part of the Duddon Estuary Site of Special Scientific Interest. The Duddon estuary is also an Important Bird Area, and a

Special Protection Area A Special Protection Area (SPA) is a designation under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. Under the Directive, Member States of the European Union (EU) have a duty to safeguard the habitats of migratory birds and certa ...

(Morecambe Bay and Duddon Estuary SPA).

Birdlife

Hodbarrow has breeding populations of

tern Terns are seabirds in the family Laridae that have a worldwide distribution and are normally found near the sea, rivers, or wetlands. Terns are treated as a subgroup of the family Laridae which includes gulls and skimmers and consists of e ...

s. It was one of the sites involved in a project funded by the LIFE programme called "LIFE on the edge improving the condition and long-term resilience of key coastal SPAs in S, E and N England ". In the case of Hodbarrow, slag was moved to create a new island in the lagoon for the benefit of little, common and

sandwich A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...

terns. Hodbarrow is also renowned for large numbers of wildfowl during the winter, especially

teal alt=American teal duck (male), Green-winged teal (male) Teal is a greenish-blue colour. Its name comes from that of a bird — the Eurasian teal (''Anas crecca'') — which presents a similarly coloured stripe on its head. The word is oft ...

, wigeon, coot, mallard,

tufted duck The tufted duck or tufted pochard (''Aythya fuligula'') is a small diving duck with a population of close to one million birds, found in northern Eurasia. The scientific name is derived from Ancient Greek '' aithuia'', an unidentified seabird ment ...

common pochard The common pochard (; ''Aythya ferina'') is a medium-sized diving duck. The scientific name is derived from Greek '' aithuia'', an unidentified seabird mentioned by authors including Hesychius and Aristotle, and Latin ''ferina'', "wild game", ...

goldeneye ''GoldenEye'' is a 1995 spy film, the seventeenth in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions, and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Directed by Martin Campbell, it was the first in the se ...

red-breasted merganser The red-breasted merganser (''Mergus serrator'') is a diving duck, one of the sawbills. The genus name is a Latin word used by Pliny and other Roman authors to refer to an unspecified waterbird, and ''serrator'' is a sawyer from Latin ''serra' ...

, and occasionally

long-tailed duck The long-tailed duck (''Clangula hyemalis''), formerly known as oldsquaw, is a medium-sized sea duck that breeds in the tundra and taiga regions of the arctic and winters along the northern coastlines of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It is th ...

eider Eiders () are large seaducks in the genus ''Somateria''. The three extant species all breed in the cooler latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. The down feathers of eider ducks, and some other ducks and geese, are used to fill pillows and quil ...

, goosander, pintail and shoveler.

References

External links

RSPB HodbarrowMillom's premier information website

Millom information websiteThe Cumbria Directory - Hodbarrow Nature Reserve
Nature reserves in Cumbria Royal Society for the Protection of Birds reserves in England Birdwatching sites in England Iron mines in England Mining in Cumbria {{Cumbria-geo-stub