Sule Skerry
| Sule Skerry | |
 Landing Place, July 15, 1967 | |
|---|---|
| Location | |
| Location: | 59°5’3"N, 4°24’29"W |
| Grid reference: | HX621244 |
| Area: | 40 acres |
| Highest point: | 39 feet |
| Data | |
| Population: | 0 |
Sule Skerry is a remote skerry in the North Atlantic 40 miles west of the Orkney Mainland. Sule Skerry's sole neighbour, Sule Stack, lies six miles to the southwest. The remote islands of Rona and Sula Sgeir lie approximately 50 miles further to the west. Sule Skerry and Sule Stack are both a part of Orkney.
Sule Skerry is 40 acres in area and about ½ mile long along its length.[1] It reaches a height of 39 ft.[2] It is formed of Lewisian gneiss.[3]
Contents
Uses
There is a lighthouse at the centre high point of the island and a number of small cairns around the periphery.
According to the Guinness Book of Records, the Sule Skerry lighthouse was the most remote manned lighthouse in Great Britain from its opening in 1895 to its automation in 1982. Its remote location meant that construction could only take place during the summer, thus it took from 1892-94 to complete.
A meteorological buoy used in Met Office's Marine Automatic Weather Station (MAWS) Network is located off Sule Skerry. Results from the buoy are used in the Shipping Forecast.
Biology
Sule Skerry together with Sule Stack are listed as a Special Protection Area as they are home during the breeding season to thousands of puffins and gannets and smaller numbers of the rarer Leach's Storm Petrel and Storm Petrels. Note that Leach's petrel visit the island but breeding is not proved. Since the first visiting birds in 2003 there is now a large breeding population of Gannet; a possible overflow from nearby Sule Stack.
The island is tree-less, since few trees would withstand the high winds of winter and salt spray environment. The dominant plant is maritime mayweed (Tripleurospermum maritimum).
References
- ↑ SPA description
- ↑ National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency: Sailing Directions (Enroute), Pub. 141, Scotland.
- ↑ Kirton, S.R.; Hitchen, K. (1987). "Timing and style of crustal extension N of the Scottish mainland". in Coward M.P., Dewey J.F. & Hancock P.L.. Continental Extensional Tectonics. Special Publications. 28. London: Geological Society. pp. 501–510. ISBN 978-0-632-01605-1. http://sp.lyellcollection.org/cgi/content/abstract/28/1/501.
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Sule Skerry) |
