Craigleith
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- This article is about the island in the Firth of Forth. For the suburb of Edinburgh, see Craigleith, Edinburgh.
Craigleith is a small island in the Firth of Forth off North Berwick in East Lothian, Scotland. Its name comes from the Scottish Gaelic Creag liath meaning 'grey rock'. It is 24 m at its highest point.
[edit] Geography and geology
Craigleith makes up the chain of islands near North Berwick along with Bass Rock, Fidra and The Lamb. Of the four islands it is the closest to the town's harbour. Like the other nearby islands, Craigleith is a bird colony. Divers often explore the area around the island.
Craigleith is a laccolith, a lava dome. The Lothians are dotted with evidence of ancient volcanic activity, such as the Bass Rock and Arthur's Seat. It is made up of essexite which is popular for making curling stones.[1]
[edit] History and wildlife
Historically, Craigleith was a rabbit warren, where the animals were deliberately bred for food.
In 1814, Sir Hew Dalrymple purchased the island from Berwick Town Council.[1]
The puffin colony on Craigleith, once one of the largest in Britain with 28,000 pairs became endangered from 1999 onwards, due to an invasion of the non-endemic plant tree mallow, thriving with warmer winters, which choked the puffins' burrows, preventing from rearing their chicks, or "pufflings". A five year project, SOS Puffin, led by the Scottish Seabird Centre at North Berwick, was launched early in 2007 after one of the Centre's volunteers, Maggie Sheddan noticed the ever decreasing numbers of puffins. Since then, hundreds of volunteers have been working hard to rid the island of the problem, ferried out by boat from the Seabird Centre during the winter months, when the puffins are out at sea. Initial results show that there are signs that the puffins are starting to return to the island to breed. [2] Cormorants, shags and guillemots breed here. The Scottish Seabird Centre has solar powered cameras on the islands which transmit images of the puffins and other wildlife on the island via live webcams at www.seabird.org. Daily boat trips will be sailing around the island as from 2008.
[edit] References
- Haswell-Smith, Hamish The Scottish Islands
- ^ a b Overview of Craigleith. Gazetteer for Scotland. Retrieved on 2008-02-08.
- ^ Ian Johnston. "£235,000 lifeline for puffins driven out by ruthless march of the mallow", The Scotsman, 2 March 2007. Retrieved on 2008-02-08.
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