Priest Island

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Priest Island
Location
Priest Island
Priest Island shown within Scotland.
OS grid reference:	NB925025
Names
Gaelic name:	Eilean a' Chlèirich
Meaning of name:	Priest Island
Area and Summit
Area:	122 ha
Area rank (Scottish islands):	137=
Highest elevation:	78 m
Population
Population (2001):	0
Groupings
Island Group:	Summer Isles
Local Authority:	Highland

References:	^[1]^[2]^[3]

Priest Island (Gaelic: Eilean a' Chlèirich) is a small, uninhabited island in the Summer Isles off the west coast of Scotland.

1 History
2 Geography
- 2.1 Whitgift School study
3 Wildlife
4 Footnotes

[edit] History

It is believed that the island was used by culdees for religious purposes, and has several stone circles.^[4]

[edit] Geography

Priest Island is the outermost and most exposed of the Summer Isles, lying about 6 km off the west coast of Wester Ross.^[5]

[edit] Whitgift School study

In the summer of 1960, a group from an English school studied some of the bird life of the island^{[citation needed]}. Pupils and teachers from Whitgift School in South Croydon spent 2 weeks on the island with official permission to study and ring some of the birds, such as storm petrels at night time (netting and ringing) and shags on the cliffs in daytime. They took a month's supplies with them, including food, tents and equipment totalling quarter of a ton on a trek cart pulled over from Garve Station. The cart's wheel broke half a mile from Garve. After further difficulties, and help from locals, a comprehensive ornithological study was compiled.

The scouts had a copy of Frank Fraser Darling's book Island Years with them, recounting, inter alia, his family's year on the Summer Isles.

[edit] Wildlife

Eilean a' Chleirich is owned and managed as a nature reserve by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. It is a SSSI and a Special Protection Area. Non-avian fauna includes pygmy shrews, otters and grey seals.^[4]

Priest Island supports heath communities and a small amount of woodland. Enrichment from salt spray and bird guano enables more species-rich maritime heath and cliff communities to exist around the coast. The island has one of the largest Storm Petrel (Hydrobates pelagicus) colonies in the UK, together with other breeding seabirds.^[5]