Balnakeil and Faraid Head

The glory of Balnakeil is its long beach of silver shell sand, backed by marram covered dunes and fringing a sea that is green or turquoise near the shore and darkens to navy blue towards the horizon. In spring and summer, the cliff tops of Faraid Head are a magical garden of wild flowers. At all times of the year bird life abounds.

The solid form of Balnakeil House dominates the beach. Although the wall facing the sea is tall and broad, there are only a few small windows. Testimony to the ferocity of the gales that blow in off the sea, especially during the winter months. The house was once owned by the Lords Reay of Clan Mackay. Opposite Balnakeil House stands the roofless church, surrounded by its graveyard. The walls of the church are covered in tiny ferns, ivy and red campion.

The beach is excellent for sea shells. In addition to mussels, limpets, periwinkles, cockles and razorshells there are tiny fragile tellins, pectens, top-shells and cowries, and, in the autumn and winter, sturdy ocean quahogs. The sand slopes very gently, making the beach safe for paddling and bathing.

Many of the plants growing on the cliff top are species that prefer lime rich soils. Here the underlying rocks are Precambrian formed over 800 million years ago, and much of the lime derives from the shell sand. One of these lime lovers, mountain avens, is an arctic alpine plant, which normally, as its name suggests, grows at high altitude, but here happily produces its cream coloured daisy like flowers at sea level. On a glittering rock outcrop above the sea near the end of the headland, the bright green cushions of moss campion are another example of the arctic-alpine plant growing at sea level instead of high on mountains.

In damp ground, Scottish primrose grows sparingly producing its red-purple flowers in May and June and again in July and August. This plant grows nowhere else but in the north of Scotland. In the dunes purple and yellow flowers dune pansies can be found, while there is roseroot, Scots lovage and sea spleenwort to be found on the cliffs.

The offshoot stacks have ledges that make perfect nesting places for guillemots and razorbills, while on the sea rafts of puffins, black guillemots, eiders, shags and cormorants can be seen. Kittiwakes and fulmars nest on the cliffs.

On the sandy shores, dunlins and ringed plovers are frequent visitors, while in the marshy areas lapwings and snipe are often to be encountered. In the winter, great northern divers and long tailed ducks seek the shelter of Balnakeil Bay, while flocks of Barnacle geese from Greenland fly overhead on their annual migration routes.