The Northern Isles: Shetland & Orkney
Orkney. Credit: Martin Webb
The island groups of Shetland and Orkney are places of superlatives. Towering cliffs that are home to over a million seabirds, including endearingly cute puffins, thousands of grey and common seals and a wonderful array of marine mammals from dolphins to killer whales.
- Shetland: over 100 islands and some of Britain’s greatest natural spectacles. Gannets, great skuas (known locally as Bonxies), as well as fulmars, storm petrels, guillemots, kittiwakes, razorbills and arctic terns. Birds such as the whimbrel and red-necked phalarope nest on the isles, and the serpentine heath on Unst is botanically unique.
- Orkney: day-hunting short-eared owls, wailing red-throated divers (known as the rain-goose) and nesting shorebirds. Brown hares share flowery meadows with the unique Orkney vole.
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