Avocets came back to breed on Havergate Island in 1947, the first time in more than a century that they had nested in Britain, and the RSPB, which has managed the island ever since, later made the avocet its own emblem. The island itself is a flat spread of shingle and brackish lagoons in the River Ore, part of the Alde-Ore estuary south of Orford. The only way onto the island is the RSPB’s own boat from Orford Quay, a twenty-minute crossing that needs booking well ahead, since places are limited and the island is closed to visitors through the breeding season in early summer. From a string of hides along a single path, you can look out over avocets, terns and a large gull colony, with brown hares often out on the grass between them. Orford Castle, the Norman keep Henry II built above the town between 1165 and 1173, is worth a look before or after a crossing.
© Roger Jones / Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
