Gannets – St Kilda

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We had booked to go to St Kilda, it was one of Mark’s wishes to go. My husband is Scottish and he hadn’t really ever explored the islands from the Highlands until we started travelling there together. So it’s been really lush to experience that together. And he’d always dreamed of going to St Kilda because it’s the most westerly point in the UK and one of the most remote islands.

And it’s also known, and it’s a globally significantly important site, for the gannet colonies that are there on the sea stacks. And some of these sea cliffs are like 400m high. They’re absolutely incredible, and so we booked to go, but we knew fully that you had to have the sea conditions, the weather, and so often it’s two, three, four attempts before you actually get to go and that’s never in the same trip because people have booked up the future dates that your trip is running for. 

So you’ve kind of got that one strike on these sort of trips to try and get to somewhere as pristine and as special as St Kilda, and so we managed it. And on the way back to shore, we, got to go around a lot of the, the smaller islands that are in that archipelago.

And, we witnessed the gannets, which were just so majestic to see. And, whenever I’m shooting, I’m always trying to look for points of minimalism, that justs, things that draw your eye in that are a little bit different. And I saw these two gannets doing their, iconic kind of neck mating rub, which was so cool to see.

And then I just love how the light’s catching them against those really, really dark cliffs and really spotlighting them and, it’s great to see that they’re nesting as well, because the gannets have been so hit by the bird flu, outbreaks that, it’s so, so vital that these populations, get to, to thrive. And so it was just so special to, to see them that day.