Calls of the wild

Think you know your birds – or want to know more? Jeannie Swales and Tony Bartholemew sampled a new bespoke birding tour at Spurn Point

You might think it could be a tad intimidating for a very amateur birder to be out on Spurn Point, one of the world’s most famous birding locations, with an expert from the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and the editor of Bird Watching magazine.

These are definitely men who know a hawk from a hawfinch, even on a wildly blustery day in mid November when we all have to down binoculars on a regular basis to wipe our watering eyes.

Yorkshire Life was invited on a new bespoke birding tour offered by the Trust, and starting next spring.

The tours will be very personal – just three people at a time (or possibly four if you’re all good friends and don’t mind being a bit squished in the back of the YWT pick-up truck as you bounce down the peninsula) – and all led by the YWT’s Spurn Gateway development officer and lifelong birder, Adam Stoyle.

We arrive early in the morning on one of the coldest, wettest days of the winter so far – a day when any sensible creature, great or small, is seeking the warmest, most sheltered place, it can find.

The day starts with tea or coffee in the Spurn Discovery Centre at the northern end of this windswept spit of land.