Had my first visit to this wonderful little reserve yesterday and it certainly didn’t disappoint. Merlin, peregrine, and buzzard all flying over my head with lots and lots of fulmars back on the cliffs, chattering away. Eiders on the sea down below, with song thrushes and blackbirds in the gorse bushes, there was never a shortage of something to look at. I stopped for a while at the new shelter, it was such a lovely day I sat on the bench outside though, and just soaked up the spectacle, can’t wait to see the cliffs full of birds – a real seabird city.

Hi, I’m Richard Humpidge, the new site manager for the RSPB Grampian Reserves, based at the Loch of Strathbeg. Been here for about three weeks now and thought it was more than time I went down to Fowlsheugh to see what it was like. My first ‘birding’ job was working on seabirds in Wales, many, many years ago, so it lovely to now come back to them again, can’t wait for the hustle and bustle to come into full swing and the noise and the smell of it all.