BBC Wildlife: UK’s 10 favourite places for wildlife revealed - winners include The Causeway Coast

Home to an astonishing array of fascinating creatures and habitats, the UK offers a wealth of wildlife spots which attract nature enthusiasts and conservationists alike. And now, BBC Wildlife magazine has revealed the UK’s 10 favourite places for wildlife as nominated by people in the network as part of its 60th anniversary celebrations in January.

Conservationists, authors, presenters, and photographers chose the locations to highlight their finest wildlife spots in the UK. The places, which ranged from lofty peaks to beautiful seas, were then put to a public vote on YouGov.

The winner is the stunning Causeway Coast, a wild place of outstanding natural beauty with dunes, sheer cliffs and the amazing rock formations of the magnificent Giant’s Causeway. The region also hosts a wonderful wealth of marine wildlife, from seals to basking sharks.

In second place is South London’s Wimbledon Common, nominated by author Jini Reddy. Covering 460 hectares of green space, the capital’s famous green lung is both an SSSI and Special Area of Conservation, thanks to its rich grassland and heathland, and provides a home to a diversity of wildlife including badgers, foxes, kestrels and kingfishers.

Third place falls to Scotland’s Scaur Glen as nominated by Juliet Vickery from the British Trust Ornithology. The Scaur River passes through this glen, bubbling through moorland, meandering through sheep pasture and tumbling through wooded riverbanks to Penpont.

The beautiful Isles of Scilly, off Cornwall follows in fourth, with Yorkshire’s Rodley Nature Reserve in fifth.

Tara Shine, an environmental scientist who nominated the Causeway Coast, said: “I’m absolutely delighted that the Causeway Coast has been voted the UK’s favourite place for wildlife.

“While studying at Ulster University, I spent some of my most memorable days near, in and under the water here, catching waves off the sandy beach at Portrush, snorkelling with curious grey seals, and scuba-diving off the Skerries and below the dramatic cliffs of Rathlin Island, where I glided over stony reefs with dogfish and among shipwrecks with conger eels.