Print pageSeasonal highlights
Each season brings a different experience at our nature reserves. In spring, the air is filled with birdsong as they compete to establish territories and attract a mate. In summer, look out for young birds making their first venture into the outside world. Autumn brings large movements of migrating birds - some heading south to a warmer climate, others seeking refuge in the UK from the cold Arctic winter. In winter, look out for large flocks of birds gathering to feed, or flying at dusk to form large roosts to keep warm.
Spring
Pink-footed geese arrive from the south prior to heading to Iceland in early May; look out for barnacle, greylag and white-fronted geese as well. General dwindling of wildfowl numbers on the Loch as teals and wigeons depart to their breeding grounds further north.
As the spring progresses, waders such as dunlins, ringed plovers, whimbrels, sanderlings and black-tailed godwits are seen heading north, with dotterels annual in late May. Scarce visitors are seen every year, with little egret, spoonbill and avocet regular in recent springs.
Summer migrants such as wheatears, willow, sedge and grasshopper warblers, swallows, house and sand martins, swifts and terns, start to arrive from early April and by the middle of May, most birds are on their territories.
Summer
Common terns and black-headed gulls on the island in front of the visitor centre will be busy feeding chicks from mid-to late June. From late June onwards, the first failed or non-breeding waders such as lapwings, golden plovers and dunlins will return to site.
This is the best period for flowers on the dunes where the display of dog violets can be very impressive. On calm days, a range of butterflies, including dark green fritillaries, can be seen. Also in the dunes, copulating pairs of burnet moths can be seen clinging to the marram grass.
On the Loch, the moulting flocks of mute swans and tufted ducks can reach several hundred.
Autumn
September is one of the busiest months of the year with vast numbers of pink-footed geese coming in from Iceland on north-westerly winds - numbers will peak in late September and early October when up to 80,000 can roost on the Loch.
In addition, barnacle and greylag geese can arrive in their hundreds. Wildfowl such as teals, wigeons, gadwalls, mallards, pochards and goldeneyes start to increase as local birds move onto the Loch.
Wader passage peaks in September, with ruffs, greenshanks and spotted redshanks all regular. Summer migrants start to head south from September with only solitary swallows remaining by mid-November.
Winter
Winter wildfowl continue to arrive, with good numbers of whooper swans, wigeons, teals, pintails and shovelers all present in the area. In colder periods, scarcer species such as slavonian grebes, smews, long-tailed ducks and scaups arrive on the Loch.
Scotland's only regular wintering bittern reappears each year in November and in cold weather can be seen regularly from Fen Hide.
Raptors such as hen harriers, merlins and peregrines are regularly seen quartering over the reserve with the occasional short-eared owls in the dunes. Local farmland birds such as skylarks, corn buntings, yellowhammers, linnets and reed buntings are joined by birds coming south from the continent.
Tree sparrows and great spotted woodpeckers are easily seen on the feeders around the Visitor Centre car park. In hard winters when the Loch partially freezes, otters are seen regularly from Fen Hide.