Craigleith () is a small island in the

Firth of Forth The Firth of Forth () is a firth in Scotland, an inlet of the North Sea that separates Fife to its north and Lothian to its south. Further inland, it becomes the estuary of the River Forth and several other rivers. Name ''Firth'' is a cognate ...

off

North Berwick North Berwick (; ) is a seaside resort, seaside town and former royal burgh in East Lothian, Scotland. It is situated on the south shore of the Firth of Forth, approximately east-northeast of Edinburgh. North Berwick became a fashionable holi ...

East Lothian East Lothian (; ; ) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, as well as a Counties of Scotland, historic county, registration county and Lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area. The county was called Haddingtonshire until 1921. In ...

, Scotland. Its name comes from the

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 ...

''Creag Lìte'' meaning "rock of Leith". It is at its highest point.

Geography and geology

Craigleith is part of a chain of four islands near North Berwick, along with Bass Rock, Fidra and the Lamb. Of these, it is the closest to the town's

harbour A harbor (American English), or harbour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), is a sheltered body of water where ships, boats, and barges can be Mooring, moored. The t ...

. Like these other nearby islands, Craigleith is a bird colony. Divers often explore the area around the island. Craigleith is a

laccolith A laccolith is a body of intrusive rock with a dome-shaped upper surface and a level base, fed by a conduit from below. A laccolith forms when magma (molten rock) rising through the Earth's crust begins to spread out horizontally, prying apart ...

, a

lava dome In volcanology, a lava dome is a circular, mound-shaped protrusion resulting from the slow extrusion of viscous lava from a volcano. Dome-building eruptions are common, particularly in convergent plate boundary settings. Around 6% of eruptions ...

. (The

Lothian Lothian (; ; ) is a region of the Scottish Lowlands, lying between the southern shore of the Firth of Forth and the Lammermuir Hills and the Moorfoot Hills. The principal settlement is the Scottish capital, Edinburgh, while other signific ...

s are dotted with evidence of ancient volcanic activity, such as Bass Rock and

Arthur's Seat Arthur's Seat (, ) is an ancient extinct volcano that is the main peak of the group of hills in Edinburgh, Scotland, which form most of Holyrood Park, described by Robert Louis Stevenson as "a hill for magnitude, a mountain in virtue of its bol ...

.) Craigleith is made up of essexite, which is popular for making

curling Curling is a sport in which players slide #Curling stone, stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area that is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take t ...

stones.

History and wildlife

Historically, Craigleith was a

rabbit Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also includes the hares), which is in the order Lagomorpha (which also includes pikas). They are familiar throughout the world as a small herbivore, a prey animal, a domesticated ...

warren, where the animals were deliberately bred for food. Rabbits were wiped out by myxomatosis in the 1950s. They were mysteriously re-introduced onto the island in 2008, and some have been seen recently. In 1814, Sir Hew Dalrymple purchased the island from North Berwick Town Council. The

puffin Puffins are any of three species of small alcids (auks) in the bird genus ''Fratercula''. These are pelagic seabirds that feed primarily by diving in the water. They breed in large colonies on coastal cliffs or offshore islands, nesting in crev ...

colony on Craigleith, once one of the largest in Britain with 28,000 pairs, became endangered from 1999 onwards, due to an invasion of the non-endemic plant tree mallow, thriving with warmer winters, which choked the puffins' burrows, preventing them from rearing their chicks, or "pufflings". An ongoing project, SOS Puffin, led by the Scottish Seabird Centre at North Berwick, was launched early in 2007 after one of the Centre's volunteers, Maggie Sheddan, noticed the ever-decreasing numbers of puffins. Since then, hundreds of volunteers have been working hard to rid the island of the problem, ferried out by boat from the Seabird Centre during the winter months, when the puffins are out at sea. Initial results show signs that the puffins are starting to return to the island to breed. Cormorants, shags and guillemots breed here. The Scottish Seabird Centre has solar-powered cameras on the islands which transmit images of the puffins and other wildlife on the island vi
live webcams.
Daily boat trips around the island have been made since 2008.

External links

Report of overnight stay on the island

References

* Islands of the Forth Landforms of East Lothian {{EastLothian-geo-stub

Geography and geology

History and wildlife

See also

External links

References