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this summer, British nature lovers will be given the chance to experience at first hand the extraordinary sights, sounds and smells of the world's largest colony of northern gannets.
Some 150,000 of the seabirds arrive each year to breed on the Bass Rock, a one-mile upturned muffin of phonolite in the Firth of Forth, a few miles from Edinburgh. The site is of special scientific interest and a magnet to ornithologists who until now have had to be content to sail round the rock and watch the birds diving for chum.
Each year the gannets make the journey from their winter grounds in south-west Africa to take up a perch with their lifelong mate on the island, which is also home to one of Britain's most important colony of puffins.
Observable from Arthur's Seat in central Edinburgh, and home to a historic lighthouse and crumbling ruins of a church, the island – hardly more than a volcanic plug – stands 100m high and has gradually turned white over the years with gannet droppings.
The proposal to admit visitors was given the go-ahead by Sir Hew Hamilton-Dalrymple, whose family has owned the rock for 300 years. Each week during the breeding season, a guided photographic trip will leave the Scottish Seabird Centre from the harbour at North Berwick to make an eight-hour round trip to the island, aboard a working trawler.
"You can feel the wind whistling in your ears as they dive. These birds enter the water at 100kph [50mph] and dislocate their wings in order to achieve the remarkable shape," said Lynda Dalgleish of the Seabird Centre.
"It is not a glamorous trip and people shouldn't expect to be served with gin and tonics on board, but it is spectacular and really quite awesome. The birds are very loving to their mates and they do a lot of bonding and petting. But they can be very aggressive towards their neighbours and a lot of squabbles break out. The sound can be deafening."
The birds are already online stars as the Seabird Centre has set up a series of webcams to monitor their progress through the breeding season.
The gannets begin arriving from January onwards, returning south in October when their chicks have hatched. Locally the gannets are known as Solan geese, with the Bass Rock giving its name to their scientific name, Sula bassana.
The twice-weekly photographic trips, which allow visitors to spend three hours on the island, can take 11 passengers and cost £85. A sail round Bass Rock costs £17-£20.
Some 150,000 of the seabirds arrive each year to breed on the Bass Rock, a one-mile upturned muffin of phonolite in the Firth of Forth, a few miles from Edinburgh. The site is of special scientific interest and a magnet to ornithologists who until now have had to be content to sail round the rock and watch the birds diving for chum.
Each year the gannets make the journey from their winter grounds in south-west Africa to take up a perch with their lifelong mate on the island, which is also home to one of Britain's most important colony of puffins.
Observable from Arthur's Seat in central Edinburgh, and home to a historic lighthouse and crumbling ruins of a church, the island – hardly more than a volcanic plug – stands 100m high and has gradually turned white over the years with gannet droppings.
The proposal to admit visitors was given the go-ahead by Sir Hew Hamilton-Dalrymple, whose family has owned the rock for 300 years. Each week during the breeding season, a guided photographic trip will leave the Scottish Seabird Centre from the harbour at North Berwick to make an eight-hour round trip to the island, aboard a working trawler.
"You can feel the wind whistling in your ears as they dive. These birds enter the water at 100kph [50mph] and dislocate their wings in order to achieve the remarkable shape," said Lynda Dalgleish of the Seabird Centre.
"It is not a glamorous trip and people shouldn't expect to be served with gin and tonics on board, but it is spectacular and really quite awesome. The birds are very loving to their mates and they do a lot of bonding and petting. But they can be very aggressive towards their neighbours and a lot of squabbles break out. The sound can be deafening."
The birds are already online stars as the Seabird Centre has set up a series of webcams to monitor their progress through the breeding season.
The gannets begin arriving from January onwards, returning south in October when their chicks have hatched. Locally the gannets are known as Solan geese, with the Bass Rock giving its name to their scientific name, Sula bassana.
The twice-weekly photographic trips, which allow visitors to spend three hours on the island, can take 11 passengers and cost £85. A sail round Bass Rock costs £17-£20.
