Montrose Basin

Let’s Walk! A Guide to the Montrose Basin Reserve Walks
06 October 2019

Are you longing to see a kingfisher? Would you like to see basking seals? Or, do you like to challenge yourself to identify wading birds? Well, at Montrose Basin there are 5 main walks that will allow you take in the sights and sounds of the different areas of the wildlife reserve. They all offer a unique perspective of this fantastic reserve and the wildlife you’re likely to see in each area changes with the seasons. This handy guide will…

The Migration of the Montrose Basin Ospreys
11 September 2019

As the autumn days are drawing in and as the first pink-footed geese have started to arrive, views of ospreys fishing over Montrose Basin, ones we’ve become so accustomed to in the last 5 months, are starting to become more sporadic. Could the final osprey sighting of the year be close at hand? With the last sighting of 2018 recorded on 20th September, the answer would invariably seem to be ‘yes’. You might have a number of questions about the…

A New Resident Kingfisher
10 August 2019

As you may already know, kingfisher sightings at Montrose Basin are more common outside of their breeding season. We can see them daily from the visitor centre from around August through to March, but once breeding season begins, they become much more elusive and stick to riverbanks to raise two or three broods of kingfisher chicks. Now that breeding season is coming to a close, our kingfisher sightings are on the increase again. At the beginning of July, we were…

The Waders Are Returning!
15 July 2019

It’s mid-July, Summer is in full-flow, and birdwatchers are already thinking “Wow, I can’t wait for Autumn to arrive.” What you’ll see at Montrose Basin very much depends on the time of year – July is great for osprey spotting and watching terns and sand martins, and in July 2017 we were delighted to have regular sightings of a juvenile kingfisher returning to the visitor centre perches after breeding season. But this time of year can be very quiet otherwise.…

Discovering the History of some of Montrose Basin’s Birds
26 June 2019

Have you ever spotted a bird in your garden that has a ring on its leg and have you wondered what this ring actually means? At Montrose Basin we often see birds with rings or tags on them and this means we get to find out a lot of interesting information about their history. FC6 © David Reynolds Bird ringing is a way of tracking and identifying individual birds to keep a record of their movements…

Volunteering at Montrose Basin – Life Beyond the Classroom
07 June 2019

My name is Jay, and I have just completed my second year at the University of Dundee, where I am studying to become a Primary School Teacher. In March-April this year, I undertook an 8 week voluntary placement at Montrose Basin Visitor Centre as part of the module Learning from Life, which provides a unique opportunity for students to gain some experience outside the classroom. At the beginning of my time at the Visitor Centre, I was admittedly very anxious…