Montrose Basin is an enclosed estuary of the river South Esk covering 750 hectares, home to over 80,000 migratory birds – including pink-footed geese, Arctic terns, knots and sedge warblers. Our four-star visitor centre offers a great day out for all the family in Angus.
Address: Montrose Basin, Rossie Braes, Angus DD10 9TA
Visiting safely
A range of new measures have been put in place in the Montrose Basin Visitor Centre in line with Scottish Government guidelines to keep you and our staff and volunteers safe. This includes pre-booked timed entry, enhanced cleaning, sneeze screens and hand sanitising stations. Please do not visit if you or anyone in your household has any symptoms of Coronavirus. The visitor centre closes for an hour at lunch time, so please make a note of the timeslots you can visit during in our Book a Ticket section below.
If you are booking for multiple people, please ensure that you are following the latest government guidance with regards the numbers of people and households that can meet.
We want you to have a safe and enjoyable visit to our centre. Watch our virtual walk-through below to see what to expect on your visit.
During your visit, we ask you to please:
- Keep your distance from others (at least 2m)
- Wear a face covering in hides and the visitor centre
- Use the hand sanitising stations provided
- Wash your hands often
- Pay by contactless wherever possible
Please note: our new pre-booked timeslot system is for the visitor centre only. The walks around the reserve remain open as normal. There is no charge for accessing the reserve walks, but please be aware that they start from other car parks around the Basin.
If you are booking for more than one household, please ensure you are following the latest government guidance.
Book your ticket
Your privacy
Information we collect from visitors to the Trust, via our booking systems, will also be used to support the NHS Scotland’s Test and Protect service and we will disclose relevant personal information to the service if requested up to 21 days following your visit. For more details, please click here.
Any questions? If you have a question about your ticket or would like information on moving timeslots/refunds, please email montrosebasin@scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk
Planning your visit
Please check ahead to make sure the centre is open. It may be subject to temporary closure should a local lockdown be required. If this occurs and you have pre-booked you will be notified and refunded. Please note that we are open Thursday – Monday only and are closed on Tuesday and Wednesday.
What’s open?
Our visitor centre has reopened. The Bank of Scotland hide is still temporarily closed due to ongoing work, but all the hides out on the reserve are open. The visitor centre is the only place on the reserve to have a pre-booked timeslot system. The reserve walks and hides are always open, but please be aware that they take place for other car parks around the Basin.
Food and drink
Hot drinks and snacks are available. Visitors are also welcome to bring their own food.
Shop
The centre shop will be open, accepting contactless card payments wherever possible. In line with Scottish Government guidelines, face coverings must be worn at all times.
Scottish Wildlife Trust Members receive a 10% discount on all shop purchases.
Scottish Wildlife Trust Membership
Join today and help support our conservation work, with free access to all our visitor centres and around 120 reserves. Your support will protect Scotland’s Wildlife for the Future.
Can I bring my dog?
Dogs, if kept under control, are allowed on all the walks around the Montrose Basin but not inside the visitor centre itself (unless they are assistance dogs).
We’re Good to Go
“We’re Good To Go” is the official UK mark to signal that a tourism and hospitality business has worked hard to follow Government and industry Covid-19 guidelines and has a process in place to maintain cleanliness and aid social distancing.
Why visit?
Highlights include:
- Telescopes and binoculars set up and ready to use
- Regular wildlife events – guided walks, children’s activities (please see our events programme)
- Formal and informal education programmes available for booking for school groups all year round
- Fairtrade tea and coffee available – relax with panoramic views across the Basin
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Range of wildlife gifts available from our gift shop
Best time to visit?
- May to Sept for fishing osprey
- Oct to Feb for wintering geese
- Sept to Feb for kingfisher
- Any time for seals
- Any time for wildfowl and waders
Visit for:
- birdwatching
- coasts
- geology
- scenery
- mammals
Other information
This tidal basin is an important roosting and feeding area for a variety of passage migrants, and is internationally important for breeding eiders and wintering waders and wildfowl, attracting up to 80,000 pink-footed geese in winter.
Events
Our event schedule is currently suspended due to Covid-19.
Discover the Basin with one of our self-guided audio tours
If you would like to learn more about the Basin, our audio tours are a great place to start. Choose from four tours available through izi.TRAVEL. These tours can be accessed online or through the izi.TRAVEL mobile app available for iPhone and Android.
The magpies of Montrose have always been a bit of a mystery – despite being widespread across the UK, it was only recently that we started recording them on the Montrose Basin reserve. Magpie sightings are so unusual from our visitor centre, in fact, that they go under our ‘less common’ section on our sightings board (accompanied by exotic birds like spoonbills and cranes). Magpies are members of the corvid family, so are closely related to crows, jackdaws, and ravens.…
The autumn equinox has just passed, but the unmistakable ‘heralds of autumn’ were making their voices heard well before that. People across Scotland heard their first pink-footed geese of the season quite early this year: reports of around 200 geese came through from northern Scotland in the early hours of 6 September, and later that same day, 200 appeared at Montrose Basin! Whether or not they were the same ones is impossible to say, but it was confirmation of an…
The journey towards re-opening was a challenging – but rewarding – one for the visitor centre teams across Scotland. It took a huge amount of planning from people all across the Scottish Wildlife Trust. This time last year, the ideas of social distancing, screens, face coverings, and online booking systems were quite foreign to us, but we’re proud to say that we’ve quickly become very confident with the “new normal” since re-opening earlier this month. The visitor centre staff at…
One of our Teacher Naturalists at Montrose Basin is also a dog owner and dog-walker. Read on for advice from Kim on how to be a responsible dog walker at these particularly difficult times, but also at any time of year – with wildlife in mind! There hasn’t been one aspect of life or one person that hasn’t seen drastic change in the last month. During this time, one of the measures our government has taken is limiting the general…
In this time of drastic change, there’s some comfort to be found in the constant of nature. The worldwide event we’re currently all experiencing has affected every facet of life, but wildlife is continuing on as normal. Travel bans mean nothing to our spring migrants, and social distancing measures certainly don’t exist in the everyday lives of Scottish wildlife (especially now that breeding season has arrived). Kingfishers are no exception. At this time of year, visitors and staff at the…
The first day of spring, this year, will fall on 20th March, yet all over Montrose Basin Wildlife Reserve there are tantalising signs that a new season has already started to arrive. In the wooded and hedgerow banked areas around the Lurgies, Tayock and Mains of Dun, carpets of snow drops have been brightening visitor’s walks for several weeks. Enthusiastic daffodil heads are already starting to push their way through the warming ground, with a canary yellow parade ushering cars…
The past year has flown by and it’s now my final month working at the Montrose Basin Visitor Centre. I started in March 2019, and I can’t believe how quickly the last year has passed. Before I started this job, I barely knew anything about birds and wildlife. I could have told you what a few very common birds were, but that was about as far as my knowledge went. I remember when I attended the interview for the position,…
Even though winter is still very much happening (I type this as Storm Ciara approaches), the Montrose Basin Visitor Centre’s ‘winter hours’ are coming to an end – today! From February 10th onwards, the centre will go back to being open daily, 10:30am-5pm. We’re all very excited to see what this new season will bring. There are even a couple of extra reasons to celebrate this year: 2020 is VisitScotland’s Year of Coasts and Waters (which means we’ll have even more…