Loch Beag is a cove on the west coast of

Northern Scotland Northern Scotland was an administrative division of Scotland used for police and firefighting, fire services. It consisted of Highland (council area), Highland, the Orkney Islands, the Shetland Islands, and the Western Isles. The police serv ...

, in the vicinity of the

Sound of Arisaig The Sound of Arisaig Lochaber, Scotland, separates the Arisaig peninsula to the north from the Moidart peninsula to the south. At the eastern, landward end, the sound is divided by Ardnish into two sea lochs. Loch nan Uamh lies to the north of Ardn ...

. The eastern end of the Sound of Arisaig divides into Loch nan Uamh in the north and

Loch Ailort Loch Ailort ( ; Scottish Gaelic: Loch Ailleart) is a sea loch in Morar, Lochaber, Highland, Scotland. Loch Ailort is a shallow, V-shaped loch, with the small Ardnish Peninsula on the north side, and the large, southwest-facing Moidart Peninsu ...

in the south separated by a headland. Loch Beag is an inlet at the eastern end of Loch nan Uamh. It is long and wide, with a maximum depth of . The area is extremely thinly populated, but the loch is used for a

mussel Mussel () is the common name used for members of several families of bivalve molluscs, from saltwater and Freshwater bivalve, freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other ...

fishery. Many

eider duck The eiders () are large Mergini, seaducks in the genus ''Somateria''. The three extant species all breed in the cooler latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. The down feathers of eider ducks and some other ducks and geese are used to fill pillow ...

s also live around this

cove A cove is a small bay or coastal inlet. They usually have narrow, restricted entrances, are often circular or oval, and are often situated within a larger bay. Small, narrow, sheltered bays, inlets, creek (tidal), creeks, or recesses in a coast ...

Etymology

''Beag'' is

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...

for "small" and is the name of several small lochs around Scotland. ''Loch'' is cognate with English "lake", but in Scottish Gaelic is also applied to coastal sea inlets.

References

Coves of the United Kingdom Geography of Scotland {{Scotland-stub