St Cyrus National Nature Reserve

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Montrose, Scotland
St Cyrus National Nature Reserve

For Hippocampe wheelchair and general St Cyrus NNR enquiries contact [email protected] Rich in wildlife come and explore and enjoy this amazing place.
(946)

Fantastic coastal National Nature Reserve with a wonderful beach, coastal grasslands and cliffs. There is a visitor centre and toilets. This is a nationally important Site of Special Scientific Interest and is a National Nature Reserve, owned and managed by NatureScot.

07/09/2026

Beam me up! Hope you’ve all had a great Monday, if anyone is still up,amazing aurora visible by eye!

03/09/2026

Honk honk! Autumn is coming but not quite yet! I'm getting the daily question, 'Are the geese early?'

What we are seeing are skeins of Canada geese going on their mini-internal migration from the Moray/highland area to the East coast - ringing has shown that these birds originate from mid to southern England.

Canada geese were introduced from North America in the 17th Century as an ornamental bird, you will often see them in parks and ponds in towns and cities. Their numbers have dramatically increased and there are now over 150000 birds breeding in the UK.

Over the last 300 years some of these naturalised ‘wild’ geese have retained an instinct to migrate, with not so far to travel we always see them before the Pink-footed geese arrive.

The Pink-footed geese shouldn’t be too long now, I wonder where they are right now on their journey all the way from their breeding grounds in Iceland, Greenland and Svalbard.

(Thanks Paul Baxter for information on movements based on ringing data.)

31/08/2026

Beautiful day after the deluge of rain last night. Some damage to the path networks so bear with us as we work away at the washouts. John, Kate and the volunteers are busy at work :-)

26/08/2026

The Hippocampe ATV chairs have been popular this season, it was so lovely to get them both out yesterday, for Wendy Stephens, the support coordinator at Forest view Centre in Stonehaven 🙂 So special to meet everyone and see so many happy faces! It was lovely meeting you all. Saskia, Tessa, Hannah, Amelia, Cheryl, Sandra and Debbie!

🦋🦋We have two chairs available to anyone with reduced mobility, for free. 🦋🦋

The wheelchairs allow access to areas of the National Nature Reserve impossible to reach by visitors with standard wheelchairs and/or reduced mobility.

We have a changing places toilet with a hoist for chair-to-chair transfer if required.

🥰Email [email protected] and [email protected] for more information and to book. Note we need 3 days notice if possible.🥰

Have a lovely day! Therese and team St C!

24/08/2026

Happy Monday! Have a wonderful week everyone! What a cracking day! 🌞☀️🕶️🦋🦋🐝🐝

21/08/2026

Happy Friday! Happiness is a ribbon in the wind against a blue sky, and your toes in the sea!

A wonderful week of various groups and lots of people enjoying their last few days of holiday!

The highlight for Kate and I was the lovely group of women from the Dundee Carers Centre. What a giggle as the shoes and socks came off for a paddle! We made hand kites and Kate led us with a little ribbon dancing and movement as we walked along the beach…..and breathe!

Thank you again ladies for the most memorable of days we hope you enjoyed it too!

14/08/2026

Happy Friday!

Gosh…..how did that happen… Are you seeing them too where you are? Dozens and dozens of house martin, sand martin and swallow filling the air on the reserve!

The adults and newly fledged youngsters are starting to congregate now….soon to migrate back to sub-Saharan and southern Africa! It’s a great time of year to practice your identification skills!

The house martins are looking so glossy with their dazzling white ‘bums!’ contrasting against their blue-black shiny plumage!

Look out for the long-forked tail streamers of the swallow! Looking so smart with beautiful blue /black plumage and red throats and forehead!

The swifts look like flying sickles! Long curved wings making them look like a boomerang in the sky!

Sand martins look a little dusty, with a plain brown top and an obvious brown band across their white chest.

The New arc has been so busy raising chicks that have been unlucky enough to find themselves out of the nest! We can’t thank the team enough for collecting a family that was handed in to us at the NNR, healthy and successfully released on the 2nd of August to continue their wild lives!

Don't forget *** BIRD RINGING DEMO THIS SATURDAY 8-10AM HEAD OVER TO OUR EVENTBRITE TO BOOK A SPOT!****

12/08/2026

DON’T FORGET! 🌞🌙 Solar eclipse followed by the Perseid meteor shower!

THERE’S A SUNDOG ON EITHER SIDE OF SUN 18 51!

Tonight we’re getting a 90% partial solar eclipse! 🌒☀️ If you miss this one, you’ll have to wait another 55 years for 2081!

First contact — when the Moon first starts to pass across the Sun — will be at 6:20pm, peaking just after 7pm!

We’ve not had such a full eclipse visible here since 1999, so it’s a pretty special one! ✨

⚠️ PLEASE REMEMBER: Never look directly at the Sun with your eyes — and don’t look at it through a camera or phone — unless you’re using properly rated solar protection and filters.

There’s still time to make yourself a pinhole eclipse viewer too! 🔭.

I’ll pop a couple of useful links in the comments. 👇

credit ©Steven Gray/Cosmos Planetarium

07/08/2026

🌾Quail of a Time! 🌾; )

🎧 Turn your sound up..

Can you hear it?

That distinctive little "wet-my-lips" call belongs to one of our smallest and most secretive summer visitors – the Common Quail. To me, it sounds like a fast tap dripping in an echoey room!

One of the real highlights of this summer has been the fantastic number of Common Quail calling from the surrounding farmland. It's been a particularly good season for them around St Cyrus! Despite their name, they're anything but common to see and I’ve very seldom even heard them before this year! They're masters of camouflage, spending most of their lives hidden amongst crops and tall grasses. More often than not, you'll hear one long before you ever catch a glimpse of it.

I'm always amazed these little puddings can fly at all, let alone migrate such incredible distances! The adults are only about the size of a Starling, yet every spring they make the remarkable journey from Africa to breed here before heading south again later in the year.

And if you're lucky enough to see a family, the chicks are absolutely adorable. Newly hatched, they're only about the size of a queen bumblebee and look just like tiny fluffy bumblebees as they scurry through the grass. It's hard to believe something so unbelievably small will one day make that incredible migration too.

So next time you're out and about, pause for a moment, listen carefully and enjoy one of summer's most elusive birds. Sometimes the best wildlife experiences aren't the ones you see – they're the ones you hear. 💚

Have you heard a quail this summer? We'd love to know if you’ve heard one!

Thanks to Paul Baxter for the pictures of the actual bird! Tough shots to get!

31/07/2026

Happy Friday!

I had to share this fantastic photo! We’ve been spoiled with the hummingbird hawk moth activity this season! Ben Freeman managed to snap this fantastic photo outside the visitor center and carpark!

The similarities between the hummingbird and the hummingbird hawk moth is known as homoplasy, this is when two totally unrelated creatures evolve very similar traits as evolution converges in a magical dance!

Thanks for the photo Ben!

Address

NatureScot, The Old Lifeboat Station, Nether Warburton
Montrose
DD100AQ

Telephone

01674 830736

Website

http://www.nature.scot/st-cyrus/

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