Fife Pilgrim Way
The Fife Pilgrim Way follows a medieval pilgrim trail across Fife. Modern day walkers can enjoy this 64 mile route, starting at North Queensferry and Culross and finishing in St Andrews.
ExploreThe Fife Coast and Countryside Trust is an independent charity working with partners for a healthy environment that supports wellbeing and sustains the balance between people and nature.
Spread across more than 70 sites, FCCT maintains the Fife Coastal Path, Fife Pilgrim Way, the Lomond Hills Regional Park, local nature reserves, and award-winning beaches. The organisation has its headquarters at Harbourmaster’s House in Dysart where it manages a coastal visitor centre.
Mission Statement
Connecting Environment and People
Vision
We lead in the care of Fife’s outdoors. Working together with you, we create a healthier environment that supports wellbeing and sustains the balance between people and the natural world.
Friday, April 10 Apr 2026
At this time of year the Eden Estuary becomes a tourist destination and a filling..
FCCT offer a range of events, activities, conservation activities, guided walks and family friendly events to encourage the younger generation to develop a love of the environment.
This section includes an extensive range of downloadable resources, including themed walks
and information leaflets, which are sure to enhance any visit to Fife.
As spring unfolds across Scotland, three of our most iconic summer visitors are back in the skies - Swallows, House Martins and Swifts. These incredible travellers have flown thousands of miles from Africa to breed here. You can spot them all over Fife including at FCCT nature reserves. But can you tell them apart?
How to identify them:
🪶 Swallow
• Sleek with long tail streamers (deep forked tail)
• Glossy blue-black back with a red throat
• Flies low over fields and water, often perching on wires
🏠 House Martin
• Smaller and more compact
• Bright white underside and white rump (key feature!)
• Builds mud nests under eaves of houses
• Flight is busy and fluttery, usually around buildings
⛱️ Sand Martin
• Small and brown with a distinct dark breast band across a white underside
• Often seen zipping low over water in flocks, with quick, fluttery flight
• Nests in colonies in sandy banks or cliffs, digging burrows into soft ground
⚡ Swift
• Dark all over, with long, curved scythe-like wings
• Screaming calls as they race through the sky
• Rarely seen perched—they spend most of their life in the air
• Fast, high-flying and often in screaming groups over towns
They need our help. These amazing migrants are in decline due to the loss of nesting spaces on modern buildings, fewer insects to feed on, and the growing impacts of changing weather and climate. There are simple ways we can all make a difference, from adding nest boxes or leaving access to traditional nesting sites, to going pesticide-free to boost insect life, and recording sightings to support conservation efforts.
If you’re out in Fife or beyond, take a moment to look up and you might spot one overhead. What have you seen this #WorldMigratoryBirdDay?
#WorldMigratoryBirdDay #Swallow #Swift #HouseMartin #BirdID #NatureScotland #nature #birds
🦅World Migratory Bird Day 🦅
Ospreys are one of Scotland’s most iconic migratory birds, travelling between West Africa and the UK each year to breed. After an incredible journey, they return each spring to familiar nesting sites, where they can often be seen hunting for fish in our lochs and reservoirs.
You can spot ospreys locally at the Lomond Hills Regional Park reservoir at Ballo (see our picture), as well as nearby Loch Leven, where their spectacular dives for fish are always worth watching.
This #WorldMigratoryBirdDay, remember that every sighting matters. Recording what you see helps build a better picture of how these amazing birds are doing and supports their conservation. Keep your eyes to the skies – you never know what you might spot! You can watch live nest cams at a few different sites, including Scottish Wildlife Trust`s Loch of the Lowes in Perthshire.
https://www.fife.gov.uk/kb/docs/articles/environment2/fife-nature-records-centre/submitting-records
Scottish Wildlife Trust @rspblochleven #ospreys #migratorybirds #LomondHillsRegionalPark #Fife #loveFife #lochs #hills #birdwatching
Fife Farmers for Hedgerow 👩🏻🌾🚜🌱
Meet Stephen Melville from Cuplahills Farm, Balmullo, a farmer who took up our free hedgerow offer this year. Thanks to support from our fantastic partners Woodland Trust Scotland, and the Nature Restoration Fund, we were able to provide Stephen with over 200 metres of new hedgerow and fencing.
Stephen has planted biodiversity hedgerow across his arable farm - and he allowed us to film him for our planting project. His farm has benefited from a huge boost to biodiversity – including the arrival of two breeding pairs of Barn Owls. Well done Stephen!
#NationalHedgerowWeek #WoodlandTrustScotland #NatureRestorationFund @woodlandtrustscotland The Woodland Trust Fife Council #hedgerows #nature #biodiversity
👻 What`s the link between #NationalHedgerowWeek and ghost hunting?
Carol-Anne Glass is studying for an MSc in Wildlife and Conservation Management at SRUC. She tells us: `There is evidence of ‘ghost’ or ‘lost’ hedgerows across the arable landscape of Fife, where they have been removed or poorly managed. For my MSc dissertation project, I set out to re-discover these hedgerows, assess the condition of remaining hedgerows, and identify opportunities to reinstate hedgerows as wildlife corridors across the landscape.`
We look forward to sharing some of Carol`s findings when her dissertation is published!
@srucstudy #hedgerows #ghoststories #ghosthedgerow #agriculture #landscape #wildlife #birds #mammals #amphibians #MSc #Fife #loveFife #fields #farming
You may remember our pictures in early April showing FCCT conservation volunteers and our team constructing an otter holt at one of our local nature reserves. Well, we built it, and they definitely came! We didn`t even get time to advertise for occupants before the first tenants had moved in.
Otter spraint (dung) can be seen nestled at the holt`s entrance. The spraint ranges from absolutely fresh to a few days old, so we have visits over a spread of time. Hopefully this will lead to regular use of the site, and gives the impetus to put others in place.
An otter holt is a specially created underground shelter designed to mimic the natural burrows otters use in the wild. This one includes a separate sleeping chamber, a dedicated latrine area, and two entrances so otters can come and go safely and quietly. Holts like these give otters secure spaces to rest, shelter from bad weather, and raise their young.
#otters #wildlife #loveFife #nature #outdoors #habitat #holts #volunteers #makeadifference #thankyou #wildlifeconservation #naturerecovery @lutragrampia
