The Sky

With almost 1 million seabirds St Kilda is home to some of the most beautiful and diverse species of birds in the world and is one of the most important seabird breeding stations in the North East Atlantic. From the swooping skua to the playful puffin, a vast range of birds can be found across these islands. St Kilda is particularly renowned for its seabird colonies - gannets, fulmars, shags, cormorants, great skuas, arctic skuas, kittiwakes, guillemots, razorbills, Leach’s petrels, storm petrels and perhaps the most famous occupants of all: puffins, the ‘clowns of the sea'. 

The bird colonies present on these islands are of tremendous environmental significance. For example, the colony of northern gannets on St Kilda is one of the largest in the world. It also has the UK`s largest population of Leach`s petrels and plays host to the St Kilda wren, a rare and larger sub-species of the mainland wren only found on St Kilda. The puffin population on these islands represents a very considerable percentage of the UK total with approximately 130,000 breeding pairs at St Kilda.

The excursions offered by Sea Harris are the perfect means to watch all of these birds in action. They will be all around you, providing unmissable opportunities for photography or just the chance to appreciate the scale of the bird populations in these remote islands.