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The South Walney Nature Reserve covers an area of 130 hectares on the southern tip of a shingle island lying off the Furness Peninsula. It has been managed by the Cumbria Wildlife Trust Link since 1963. The reserve is also the home of the Walney Bird Observatory which collates bird records from across the island. Around 300 species of bird have been recorded on Walney Island since the foundation of the bird observatory in 1964.

Walney Island is a long, comparatively narrow island across a narrow channel (The Walney Channel) from the southwestern end of the Furness Peninsula. It acts as a huge natural breakwater for that peninsula and for the town of Barrow in Furness in particular. It is attached to Barrow and the mainland by a swing bridge from Vickerstown, effectively a suburb of Barrow, which straddles the central section of the island.
Walney is about 11 miles (18km) long curling eastwards at its southern end; it is however only about a mile wide at its widest point, and for much of its length far narrower than this. It has an area of roughly 5 sq.miles (13 km²) making it the eighth largest offshore island of England; its population of 10,651 (2011 Census) makes it the sixth most populous however.
The central chunk of the island is built up with the estates of Vickerstown, but most of the rest of the island especially to the south is rural, unspoilt salt flats with an insteresting and convoluted coast. There is an airfield at the north of the island near the settlement of North Scales. The only other village on the island is Biggar, on the road southwards, which has a fine public house, The Queen's Arms.