A beautiful day at Fowlsheugh today to officially open the new stone-built shelter. Friends of George and Moyra Anderson, who left us the money to build the shelter, RSPB staff, the shelter designers and local residents were all invited for the official ribbon cutting and a picnic lunch on the cliff top.

Pupils from Mackie Academy in Stonehaven cut the ribbon. These kids have been working on a long term project to get to know the reserve including making posters and presentations about the reserve. After their sterling ribbon cutting work and some brilliant interviews for the local STV team, they got to head out on a boat from Stonehaven and see Fowlsheugh from below as well as above.

To finish things off we even managed to find a puffin, much to the delight of the architects who had been working on the site all winter and much of the spring without ever managing to see one.

STV were on hand as well and a segment about the opening appeared on the 6pm news tonight. It will be available online and we'll post the link as soon as it's up for anyone who missed it.

Everyone agrees that the shelter is a beautiful building in a fantastic location. It's open from dawn to dusk if you want to walk down and visit it for yourself, or see the Fowlsheugh page for details of our guided walks.