WWT Washington Wetland Centre

WWT Washington Wetland Centre is a 100-acre reserve on the north bank of the River Wear, run by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. It combines landscaped collection areas, where you can see ducks, geese, swans, flamingos and threatened waterbirds from around the world, with genuinely wild habitats of reedbed, wet grassland and riverside woodland.

Paths and boardwalks lead between a series of hides overlooking Wader Lake, home to a well-known heronry and a busy population of little egrets, cormorants and, in the breeding season, common terns. Otters are regularly seen from the Close Encounters enclosure, and highland cattle graze parts of the reserve to manage the grassland.

Family facilities include a Discovery Zone play area, feeding stations, seasonal pond-dipping and daily talks. There is a café overlooking the main lake and a gift shop stocked with binoculars and wildlife books. The reserve is a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest and forms part of a wider Wear corridor of habitats stretching towards Sunderland.