It’s more than seven years since I left home in Enniskillen to experience life in the bright lights of Belfast but the time I’ve spent away has allowed me to really appreciate what a stunning place Fermanagh is.
As a child I spent many happy days in the great outdoors - racing my brother to the top of Lough Navar Forest to look out over Lough Erne or collecting conkers in the beautiful grounds of Castle Coole.
When I joined the team at RSPB Northern Ireland earlier this year, Area Manager Brad Robson took me on a tour of Castle Caldwell Forest, another beauty spot from my childhood which lies around five miles from the home of the famous Belleek Pottery.
The forest is a rich landscape which is home to wonderful displays of fungi, the rare Irish Whitebeam tree and some elusive mammals like red squirrels and pine martens.
From the woodland trails you can look out over Lower Lough Erne to some of the 40 islands which make up much of the RSPB’s reserve and boast wonderful names like Hare Island, Rabbit South and Muckinish.
The islands are home to lots of birds and wildlife but the dedicated habitat management carried out by the small Fermanagh RSPB team has brought about particularly good results for breeding waders, including curlew, lapwing, snipe and redshank, with more than 230 pairs nesting there in 2013.
Castle Caldwell is a stunning place to visit in winter – provided you’re wrapped up warm! Wildfowl numbers are on the increase, including the stunning goldeneye, and you might even see or hear the occasional whooper swan which has flown around 800 miles from colder conditions in Iceland!