Extensive mudflats and fertile land around the Foyle estuary have created a wildfowl and wader habitat that guarantees thrilling birdwatching experiences all year round.
Huge flocks of wintering and passage birds descend on and around the Longfield Embankment which lies in the Lough Foyle Special Protection Area and Ramsar site. Watch multitudes of pale-bellied Brent geese feeding in the intertidal mudflats, and hundreds of whooper swans doing likewise in the fields behind the sea wall. Try if you will to count the legions of bar-tailed godwit clustered along the shoreline, and record the great northern divers, Slavonian grebe, pintails, wigeon, mallard and teal that make this area a local treasure.
Every season brings its owns delights: multitudes of ringed plovers, dunlin, white wagtails and lapwings in spring; sedge warblers singing among the reeds, and whooper swans calling out, as they fly into roost in summer; the spectacle of more than 1,000 pale-bellied Brent geese, returned from their breeding grounds, sharing this space with golden plovers, godwits, dunlins and oystercatchers — to name just a few of the species making up this amazing waterscape. In spring and summer, look out for otters and the Irish hare.
Access is via minor roads off the A2 Derry to Limavady road. Car parking, shops and toilets (accessible) are available offsite.