Loch Fleet was once a wide-open bay, embracing a sea loch that reached as far inland as Rogart. Southward-sweeping currents gradually dragged shingle across the loch entrance, and reduced the mouth to a narrow channel through which currents race in and out twice every 24 hours.
These tides led the Vikings to name the loch ‘fljotr’, the Old Norse word for ‘flood’ (in Gaelic it is still known as Loch Fleoid). Each rising tide scatters fine particles from sea and river across the shallows, carrying food for small plants and animals that live there. Each ebb pulls back the covers from the loch bed, exposing rich pickings for other wildlife.
The loch’s northwestern boundary represents a historic piece of civil engineering. The Mound Causeway was built by Thomas Telford in 1816 and has provided a secure foundation for a road crossing of the estuary ever since. Large sluice gates at its northern end allow salmon and sea trout to migrate past the Mound to and from spawning areas upriver.
Wind and waves have shaped the sand dunes and coastal lands that fringe Loch Fleet to north and south. These seaward defences are home to plants and creatures that can cope with sandblasting, salt-spray dousing and extremes of heat and cold.
Marram and lyme grasses bind the dunes with their roots and runners. Hollows or ‘slacks’ behind the foredunes are damper and cooler, giving prime sites for small pioneers such as sea-milkwort, purple milk-vetch and bird’s-foot-trefoil.
On Ferry Links, nectar from heather and other flowers in the coastal heathland fuels butterflies and day-flying moths. Green hairstreak, grayling and dark green fritillary are some of the fair-weather fliers here.
It’s easy to find good views of Loch Fleet. A small parking place at Skelbo, by the minor road along the southern shore, looks out over the loch basin and across to the houses at Littleferry road. A pull-in at Balblair Bay is a good lochside stop and is only a couple of minutes’ walk from the entrance to Balblair Wood. The car park at Littleferry gives ready access to the coastal heathland, dunes and beaches on this side of the loch.
Visitors are welcome at all times of year, but are asked to respect the wildlife and the people who live and work here. Keeping to the footpath in Balblair Wood, walking (not driving) on the coastal heathland at Ferry Links, controlling dogs, not making loud noise and taking litter home are all simple things. But they can make a big difference to the well-being of Loch Fleet’s wildlife and to the enjoyment of other people who are sharing the experience of this special place.
Common seals, otters and shore crabs are a few of the animals that live on and around the loch. But it’s the birds you can’t fail to notice as they make use of the loch-fed dining opportunities in different ways. Oystercatcher probe the mud for cockles, shelduck sieve the water for snails, wigeon nibble seagrass, eider dive to devour crunchy young mussels and red-breasted merganser plunge to chase small fish. Some of these birds will be here on any day of the year; others change with the seasons.
Loch Fleet National Nature Reserve covers over 1000 hectares of estuary and coast. It is owned by Sutherland Estates and managed under a long-term agreement with Scottish Natural Heritage, in partnership with the Scottish Wildlife Trust. The agreement provides the working foundation for the whole reserve, and is already enabling careful re-structuring of the pinewood at Balblair. This will allow young trees to become established, gradually create a more varied range of tree ages in the wood, and help to secure the future of its special plants. Careful study of the vegetation is also providing useful information to assist botanists and woodland managers at other places in the Highlands.
Bar-tailed godwits, dunlin and other waders migrate from their northern breeding grounds to spend the winter in the relative shelter of estuaries like Loch Fleet, Icelandic greylag and pink-footed geese also migrate south, swelling the ranks of native greylags that overwinter here. Flocks of geese are easily recognised by their loud cackling calls and ‘V’-shaped flight formations.
Summer brings common, arctic and little terns up from Africa to their coastal nest sites. Look out for their long white wings and bouncy flight as they patrol the offshore in search of small fish.
Farther from the coast, heather mixes with blaeberry and crowberry under stands of Scots pine Balblair Wood. These trees were planted after a severe storm floored a previous pinewood in 1905. A trio of flowering plants provides a living link between this pinewood and the great northern forests that girdle the planet at this latitude: creeping lady’s-tresses, twinflower and one-flowered wintergreen are the local blooms with global connections.
The one-flowered wintergreen’s flower is shaped like a candle in an old-fashioned holder, and is also known as St Loaf’s candlestick. The peak of its summer flowering is at the time when a Norwegian prince, Olaf, was martyred trying to free his country from control by the famous King Canute. Balblair Wood is the best place in Britain for this notable bloom – more than 90% of the entire UK population grows here.
Loch Fleet NNR lies 5 miles (8kms) north of Dornoch and is easily accessible from the A9.
Loch Fleet forms the final estuary on mainland Scotland’s northeastern rim. This large tidalbasin andits bordering coastlands sustain a wealth of wildlife throughout the year – eider and tern, otter and seal, twinflower and gentian, are all to be found here. It’s a location worth visiting at any time, any season.
Scottish Natural Heritage
Main Street
Golspie
Sutherland KW10 6TG
Tel: 01408 633602
The Scottish Wildlife Trust is Scotland’s leading voluntary conservation organisation working for all kinds of wildlife. Through a network of 15,000 members and more than 120 wildlife reserves from Orkney to the Solway, it aims to conserve and enhance the full variety of the country’s wildlife and to promote public enjoyment of it
Scottish Wildlife Trust
Cramond House
Cramond Glebe Road
Edinburgh EH4 6NS
Tel: 0131 312 7765