Do gannets get vertigo? - Troup Head RSPB reserve
by - 12:03 on 01 May 2007
No doubt about it, the seabird colonies of Scotland certainly count as wildlife spectacle. From St Abbs Head in the Borders all the way to Hermaness on Shetland, the sights, sounds and smell of these seabird cities are the very essence of the wild seas that surround us. Right, that’s quite enough tourism brochure-ese. I mean, it isn’t as if anyone’s paying me for writing this.
However, Scotland’s seabird places have one feature in common. They are all vertical in a scary sort of way. And one of the most vertigo-inducing is Troup Head, east of Banff on the Moray Firth coast. A couple of decades ago a few gannet pairs started to breed here, joining the throngs of guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes, puffins and others – totalling 150,000!. Since then, gannet numbers have increased dramatically and there are now 1500 pairs, plastering themselves across the cliffs.
Once upon a time, Troup Head was a place seldom visited. It was a vertical slab of wild nature on the edge of a landscape that was man-made and intensively farmed to within a few feet of the cliff edge. But along with everyone’s increasing awareness of environmental matters, the place attracted more attention from conservation agencies, so that the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds now take care of it. Signposts have appeared and the bulldozers are currently (May 2007) at work to improve a carpark. Nevertheless the cliffs retain their untamed ambience and it’s still a bit of a hike to get round the reserve (which is always a good thing!)
And, of course, the soaring rock-faces remain as awesome as ever. To walk there and look down on the sheer mass of birdlife makes you think, most of all, of the vulnerability of it all – this hubbub of breeding activity dependent on food sources that global warming, oil spill, over-fishing or other man-made disaster, could significantly damage at any point. Yet the gannets, in particular, continue to increase. To make things easier for you to see the birds, the RSPB have newly installed a television link with Macduff Marine Aquarium a few miles along the coast. Or, instead of looking down, you can look up at the colony by way of a boat trip. Puffin Cruises, out of Macduff, sail there regularly, with an authentic local ex-skipper in charge. Also locally-based, North 58 Sea Adventures offer powerboat trips.
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