The Loch of Harray is the largest loch of

Mainland Orkney The Mainland, also known as Hrossey and Pomona, is the main island of Orkney, Scotland. Both of Orkney's burghs, Kirkwall and Stromness, lie on the island, which is also the heart of Orkney's ferry and air connections. Seventy-five per cent of O ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

and is named for the parish of

Harray Harray (pronounced ) ( non, Herað; nrn, Herrað) is a parish on Mainland, Orkney, Scotland. It has the unique distinction of being the only parish without a coastline, instead being landlocked and sitting next to a freshwater loch. Harray is ...

. It lies immediately north of the Loch of Stenness and is close to the

World Heritage A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for ...

neolithic sites of the Stones of Stenness and

Ring of Brodgar The Ring of Brodgar (or Brogar, or Ring o' Brodgar) is a Neolithic henge and stone circle about 6 miles north-east of Stromness on Mainland, the largest island in Orkney, Scotland. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the He ...

. In

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlemen ...

its name was ''Heraðvatn''.Pedersen, Roy (January 1992) ''Orkneyjar ok Katanes'' (map, Inverness, Nevis Print)

Hydrology

The loch was surveyed on 21 August 1903 by Sir John Murray and later charted as part of the ''Bathymetrical Survey of Fresh-Water Lochs of Scotland 1897-1909''. Murray observed that Loch of Harray is a freshwater loch, the largest in all Orkney with an area of approximately and volume of and that it is somewhat influenced by the tides in the

Hoy Sound Hoy Sound is a body of salt water subject to tidal currents situated south of the town of Stromness in the Orkney archipelago of Scotland. The sound lies north of the island of Hoy and to the south of Mainland Orkney. To the west are the open w ...

although there is little variation in its level. The loch is connected to the Loch of Stenness at the Bridge of Brodgar. The two lochs together cover an area of making the two combined the ninth largest loch in Scotland by area (as listed by Murray and Pullar (1910)). Murray recorded that despite there being an inlet allowing the free flow of water from the Loch of Stenness it has little impact on the biology of Harray and no seaweed was present, the water tasted fresh and normal freshwater plankton were seen.

Natural history

The loch is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and has a large number of

pondweed Pondweed refers to many species and genera of aquatic plants and green algae: *''Potamogeton'', a diverse and worldwide genus *''Elodea'', found in North America *''Aponogeton'', in Africa, Asia and Australasia *''Groenlandia ''Groenlandia'' is ...

species three of which are scarce, a rare caddis fly (''Ylodes reuteri'') and is the only known site in Scotland for a nerite snail '' Theodoxus fluviatilis'' which is more commonly found in English rivers. A wide variety of

wildfowl The Anatidae are the biological family of water birds that includes ducks, geese, and swans. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring on all the world's continents except Antarctica. These birds are adapted for swimming, floating on ...

winter at the loch including

pochard Pochard is a common name used for several species of diving ducks: *Four species in the genus ''Aythya'': ** Common pochard, ''Aythya ferina'' ** Baer's pochard, ''Aythya baeri'' ** Ferruginous pochard, ''Aythya nyroca'' ** Madagascar pochard, '' ...

tufted duck The tufted duck or tufted pochard (''Aythya fuligula'') is a small diving duck with a population of close to one million birds, found in northern Eurasia. The scientific name is derived from Ancient Greek '' aithuia'', an unidentified seabird ment ...

, scaup and

goldeneye ''GoldenEye'' is a 1995 spy film, the seventeenth in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions, and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Directed by Martin Campbell, it was the first in the se ...

References

{{reflist

Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Orkney World Heritage Sites in Scotland

Mainland, Orkney