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The Bass Rock, North Berwick, Scotland

The Bass Rock, or simply The Bass is an island in the east of Scotland. Around 2 kilometres offshore and 5 kilometres north-east of North Berwick. It is an volcanic rock, 107 metres at its highest point. The rock is currently uninhabited by human, but is home to a large colony of gannets. The Bass Rock Lighthouse was constructed on the rock in 1902.

Nowadays, the island plays host to more than 150 000 gannets and is the largest single rock gannetry in the world. When viewed form the mainland, large regions of the surface appear white due to the sheer number of birds (and their droppings). The Bass Rock has been described by Sir David Attenborough as 'one of the 12 wildlife wonders of the world'.

Max and I visited The Bass in the beginning of October 2013. We were surprised by the enormous amount of blue-eyed birds flying over, sitting on and making noise at the rock. The gannets are large white birds with yellowish heads, black-tipped wings and long bills. Gannets hunt fish by diving from a height into the sea and pursuing their prey underwater.

The gannets in combination with the rock itself is a beautiful sight and really worth a trip to Scotland. And if you're as far as North Berwick, you might even consider to visit the Scottish Highlands too... ;-)

Acknowledgement: next to my own experience, I used Wikipedia as a source of information.

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