A lifetime of Islands: Island 203

Noss is located about 250 metres to the east of Bressay and is separated from it by the aptly named Noss Sound. The island is owned by the Garth estate but is managed by Scottish Natural Heritage and staffed by seasonal wardens. It is quite rightly famous for its seabird colonies and it has been a national nature reserve since 1955. It is open from early May to the end of August but not on Mondays or Thursdays and dogs are not allowed. The boat across to the island is a small inflatable. Lifejackets are provided and it is a bit of a scramble to get in and out of the boat. A red flag is flown on the Noss side if the boat is not running due to bad weather. Non landing trips around Noss are also available and sail from Lerwick Harbour. Noss Sound is apparently a good place to see cetaceans but we didn't see any. The island is grazed by sheep. You need at least 3 hours to walk around the whole coast but if the weather is good, it would be easy to spend much longer on Noss.

Although it was sunny and warm (for Shetland in early May) when we visited there were only 10 other visitors brought across that day and we only met one of them, so it felt like we had the island to ourselves. I don't know how many visitors it gets each year but the numbers must be limited by how many can be ferried across in the small boat and therefore it must always be quieter to visit than islands like Skomer.

The Marquis of Londonderry leased Noss from 1870-1900 to breed Shetland ponies to use in his Durham coal mines. The pony pund at Gungstie has been restored and is located next to the small visitor centre and toilets.

The seabirds nest on the sandstone cliffs on the east of the island. These have eroded to form numerous ledges and crevices, which the birds need to build their nests. Puffins, gulls, kittiwakes, guillemots, razorbills, fulmars and gannets nest on the cliffs. Great and Arctic skuas nest on the moorland in the interior. There are more than 400 pairs of great skuas here, making it one of the largest colonies in the world. We saw a couple of Shetland wrens close up around the stone walls, which were built around the island to stop the ponies from falling over the cliffs.

The name Noss means nose in Old Norse, which presumably refers to the Noup, which is the highest point on the island at 181 metres and does look a bit like a nose. The gannets nest on the cliffs of the Noup. Gannets did not next on Noss until 1914 but today Noss has one of the largest gannetries in the world.

There is a large stack off the south east coast of Noss called the Holm of Noss. Until the 1860s a large box suspended on cables was strung across to the Holm each summer to enable access for men to collect seabird eggs and for sheep to use it as grazing.