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National Nature Reserve
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Dunnet Links
National Nature Reserve |
Birds are the most fascinating, varied and noticeable of the natural life around us. Watching them is popular and pleasurable.
The area around Dunnet Bay and Dunnet Head is of particular interest to Ornithologists. Embracing the principal bird habitats of land, waterside and water, there is an abundant variety of birdlife.
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The land is basically grassland or heather moor with a little woodland. Waterside habitat lies adjacent to the area’s lochs, feeder streams, ditches and bogs. The lochs also provide a water habitat, but the main water area is obviously the sea around the shore, which has both sandy dunes and rocky cliffs.
This page shows the best places to see birds and gives a checklist of birds which breed regularly in the area, along with birds of passage and rare visitors.
How you act will affect how much bird life you see. Go quietly - especially during the breeding season.
BIRDS THAT BREED HERE
| Red Throated Diver Little Grebe Fulmar Cormorant Heron Mute Swan Shelduck Wigeon Teal Mallard Tufted Duck Long Tailed Duck Red Breasted Merganser Sparrowhawk Buzzard Kestrel Peregrine Red Grouse Pheasant Grey Partridge Moorhen Oystercatcher Ringed Plover Golden Plover Lapwing Dunlin Snipe Curlew Redshank Common Sandpiper Blackheaded Gull Common Gull Herring Gull Great Black Backed Gull Arctic Tern Rock Dove |
Wood Pigeon Skylark Swallow House Martin Meadow Pipit Pied Wagtail Wren Dunnock Robin Stonechat Whinchat Wheatear Blackbird Song Thrush Grasshopper Warbler Sedge Warbler Willow Warbler Goldcrest Blue Tit Great Tit Jackdaw Rook Carrion Crow Raven Starling House Sparrow Chaffinch Greenfinch Goldfinch Siskin Redpoll Yellow Hammer Reed Bunting Razorbill Little Tern Black Guillemot |
BIRDS OF PASSAGE
| Slavonian Grebe Fulmar Gannet Whooper Swan Pink Footed Goose White Fronted Goose Greylag Goose Mandarin Gadwall Pintail Shoveller Goldeneye Goosander Merlin Coot Golden Plover Knot Little Stint Curlew Sandpiper Ruff Black Tailed Godwit Whimbrel Greenshank |
Snow Bunting Green Sandpiper Wood Sandpiper Turnstone Arctic Skua Great Skua Kittiwake Sandwich Tern Swift Sand Martin Waxwing Redstart Fieldfare Redwing Whitethroat Garden Warbler Blackcap Chiffchaff Spotted Flycatcher Long Tailed Tit Brambling Crossbill Bullfinch |
RARE AND VERY RARE BIRDS
| Great Northern Diver Slavonian Grebe Bean Goose Canada Goose Barnacle Goose Gadwall Garganey Shoveller Red Crested Pochard Lesser Scaup King Eider Common Scoter Marsh Harrier Goshawk Osprey Quail Water Rail Pacific Golden Plover Grey Plover Temmincks Stint Jack Snipe Woodcock Bartailed Godwit Spotted Redshank Little Gull Glaucous Gull Red Backed Shrike Brunnick's Guillemot White Billed Diver Baird's Sandpiper Marsh Sandpiper Ross's Gull Common Tern White Winged Black Tern |
Tawny Owl Red Rumped Swallow Yellow Wagtail Grey Wagtail Ring Ouzel Mistle Thrush Reed Warbler Lesser Whitethroat Wood Warbler Red Breasted Flycatcher Pied Flycatcher Tree Sparrow Common Rosefinch Hawfinch Red Necked Grebe Cory's Shearwater Manx Shearwater Honey Buzzard Surf Scoter Red Necked Phalarope Long Tailed Skua Hoopoe Dipper Corncrake Barred Warbler Tree Creeper Great Grey Shrike Cuckoo Collared Pratencole Pectoral Sandpiper Wilson's Phalarope Ivory Gull Black Tern |
For the enthusiast, there is a hide overlooking a shallow pond at the North West corner of St. John's Loch. Further information may be obtained from Julian Smith, St. John's, Brough.
(Tel. 01847 851 280.)
FOLLOW THE COUNTRY CODE
The Country Code
SAFETY - BE CAREFUL
Dunnet Bay Group wishes to express thanks to Julian Smith, local ornithologist, for the provision of the information contained on this page.
in conjunction with
Caithness & Sutherland Enterprise
