If you’ve visited Spurn, you’ve probably noticed the scrubby sea buckthorn scattered along the sand dunes.

This coastal plant is great for providing habitat for migrating birds and holding its berries well into winter – providing a vital food source for wintering and migrating birds to the area.  

Spurn is also a National Nature Reserve and Special Area of Conservation – designated for its plant species. It’s important to keep the dunes and the plants growing on this important habitat in a healthy condition. 

However, the scrub has become overgrown in places and has been classed as ‘Unfavourable (fixed dune grassland). Dune scrub fails on age classes,’ according to a survey by Natural England in 2020. 

Over the last year, we have spent time reviewing the habitat, talking to colleagues and Natural England, looked at options and entered a new Countryside Stewardship scheme. This has unlocked funding for some essential work to take place. 

A military heritage 
Spurn hasn’t always had a nature conservation focus. Between the first world war and 1950s, there was a large military base with over 1500 men and woman stationed there, helping to protect our coastline. 

Spurn was the ideal location for searchlights and guns. However, the dunes needed to be clear and levelled to give a clear line of site to fire an any enemy aircraft or vessels that tried to enter the mouth of the Humber (pictured below).

Military personnel left the area in the mid 1950s, as the country moved into more peaceful times. This change in land use gave the vegetation and sand dunes a chance to colonise and take hold, forming what you see today – the management approach was to let nature have free reign. Some areas of dune have grown 30ft since the 1950’s! 

Now, over 70 years later, we know more about the benefits of clearings and take a different management approach.

Healthy plants, healthy habitat

Spurn has been mainly ungrazed for the past 70 years. Without grazing animals to create clearings and open spaces, the land and vegetation has been allowed to grow, creating a space which is dominated by sea buckthorn, mainly over 25 years old. 

This is a problem because having just one age classification of a plant risks it being completely wiped out by disease. A stronger more resilient habitat requires different ages of scrub, as each age of the plant will have small differences in their genes. 

When plants are all the same age, it makes them weaker, and if a disease attack’s this weakness, all the plants will be susceptible, which could result in their large-scale loss. We’ve seen this across the UK with ash dieback. 

The point has become so densely populated and overgrown that many areas have become hard to reach and many plants are not getting the light they need to grow, creating a ‘dead’ zone below the leaf line. 

Please excuse our appearance. 

So, we’re about to start work! Over the next month, we will begin to carefully remove four hectares of sea buckthorn and create clearings – keeping an eye out for wildlife sheltering as we go. 

The work will be carried out by local trusted contractors, under consent from Natural England. We will stop the work by the end of winter, so there is minimal disruption to the wildlife – either on migration or those starting to scope spring territories. 

We expect to complete the work over the next two winters.

Parts of Spurn’s wild reserve will look very untidy and unsightly to regular visitors. But we’d like to reassure you that healthier wildflowers and grasses will start to return in the spring, creating a succession in the vegetation, and provide a more diverse range of habitats. 

We look forward to seeing the benefits and by taking this massive step forward now, the area should be formally reclassed as ‘favourable condition’ in future, meaning it’s better for plants and wildlife. 

Won't the scrub grow back?   
Highlands cows will move onto the cleared areas wearing the latest Nofence technology. 

This is a GPS collar that connects to an app on a smart phone. From the app we can set a virtual boundary which is uploaded to the collars. As the cow walks up to the virtual boundary, it hears an audible warning which increases in volume until the cow passed the boundary where it receives an electric pulse. 

We have been trialling this across our site for the past 18 months and have seen amazing results!

Highland cows are known for being great at pushing into scrub and making paths with their horns, so we are confident they will be perfect for the job! Visitors can look out for our QR codes onsite to track where our cows are.

By pairing the Nofence grazing areas with the areas we’ve cleared, we can keep the sea buckthorn in check. The cows will munch down the young shoots and help control any unwanted species that enjoy cleared areas such as thistles and brambles. They will allow bigger shoots to grow in time but manage the areas to allow different growths over the coming years. 

We will extend the Nofenced areas further out than the cleared areas. This will allow the cows to push into new areas, where the sea buckthorn can be managed by grazing, to allow some generation in the areas which have not been cleared. 

Finally, as we’ve been sharing our plans, we want to thank all the positive comments and support for the work from other conservationists, key partners and the local community who can see the benefits it will bring.

We continue to welcome all visitors to Spurn where our team will be delighted to answer any of your questions about the work.