"Lovely walks and hides in nature. Saw thousands of geese lifting off and flying over very close above us. Also saw lots of Hooper swans and Fieldfares. There are lots of beautiful wild ponies, too. The visitors centre is amazing. Take a flask and cuppie with you to sit in comfy armchairs to observe a large variety of birds feeding on feeders. We saw a Great Spotted Woodpecker right in front of us, as well Coaltits, Great Tits, Bluetits, Tree creepers, Chaffinches, Robins and loads more. There is a big and powerful scope on the landing inside the centre, too. Some amazing sightings! Wonderful experience all round. highly recommend a visit."

Angelika McKenzie

"I always think that RSPB centres aren't very well signposted and that we more likely happen upon them rather than mean to visit! This loch is massive and we thought we would be able to walk the entire circumference but not the case, probably because the area is so marshy so I'm not holding that against it! The free parking area is large enough for around 10 cars and the visitor centre is open from around 9am - 5pm with large viewing windows to see the wee garden birds on one side and the lochs from an upstairs (stair lift here!) viewing point from another side of the building. There are toilets here and walk route maps available but you won't need one other than for souvenier purposes as the walks are all signposted. We went straight to the two wetland hides signposted to the right - Tower Pool and Dunbar - and immediately saw a herd of Konik ponies with the kids loved. There were also herons, a crane, buzzards, ducks, lapwings, egrets, swans and many different garden birds which we got some great photos of with the 'big' camera as well as an old doocot on the opposite bank. We headed back to the car to collect our picnic and visit the loo at the VC, then headed for the Fen and Bay hides signposted to the left, through the wildlife garden with various bug hotels and bird boxes in situ and the short woodland walk. These hides take you through the some farm fields then the old Crimmond airfield which houses the remains of brick buildings which are mostly full of peoples dumped old junk. Keep an eye out for the RSPB signs at this point! This area is marshier in parts than the wetlands so boots are advised! A sign eventually points left to Fen and right to Bay so we chose left first. When we got to the Fen hide there were so many whooper and mute swans it was impossible to count them all! Nothing else was sighted so we didn't spend long there considering the kilometer we walked to get there! We retraced our steps and headed for the Bay hide, finding a 2nd even larger free carpark on the way which told us we were still in the Crimmond Airfield and the Bay hide was just 250m away. When we got there though it was padlocked shut with a No Entry sign on the door and on closer inspection, there were many badger burrows underneath the hide itself so we made our way back to the VC. We were slightly disappointed as we didn't see anything that mentioned that hide wasn't open but we hadn't went far out of our way really and we'd only visited the viewing windows and not the VC shop so possibly we could have been told if we'd went in when we arrived. The hides all have info boards inside which say the species of any birds or animals seen with the dates the ranger has seen them and they are all current so obviously being visited very often."

Vicky Dunbar

"Great find on my travels!

You can look out over the Loch to find birds (there is a board with recent spots on it). Pictures of potential birds you might see are by the windows, so you don't have to be an expert to join in

There's a second window that looks out onto bird feeders and it's a busy feeding station. Get yourself settled in one of the tub chairs and relax while you watch them flit amongst the trees."

Miss Jess