UKC

I'm trying to find a bit more information about some of the Caithness sea-cliffs during nesting season.

Particularly  Ellens Geo and Geo of Creagan Righe.

(I've been to  Mid Clyth and parts of  Sarclet in June before and not had issues, though I'm sure that's not true of the whole of the crags, especially at Sarclet.)

It's clear from the extensive guano ledges in the photos in the Scottish Rock Climbs (Wired) guidebook that birds do nest on these crags, some cases on or very close to the routes, yet the guidebook makes no mention of them.

I'd like to know first of all from a personal point of view (i.e. I neither want to disturb birds nor find half the routes I'd like to do out of bounds because of them), but also because in the absence of a RAD for Scotland, it would be helpful if this information was more publicly known.

We were there for a week at the end of May 2023 and there were a couple of areas at Sarclet where we spotted nests and avoided. One was at Tilted Ledge (I think there was a nest on Conglomerati) and the other area was pretty much the whole of the Pudding Stone area.

My recollection is that most of the climbing areas were clear of birds / nest / guano, though.

It can vary quite a lot year to year. I was at Ellens July 2019 and there were very few birds about, back again July 2021 and very different; very few lines which would've avoided them (though I believe it was fine again by about mid-August).  

Thanks Mike, and Adrian.

We found Creaghan Righe covered in birds mid May in 2022 and went to Ellen’s instead and a lot of routes there were birdy. Did a few routes around fracture clinic which was ok. 
Over time I’ve become much less inclined to climb when there’s birds about. 

We've had a couple of week-long trips to Caithness in mid-June 2021 and mid-May last year. There's a roundup of the 2023 trip with links to the previous visit here so you can see the contrast in birdiness: https://rockaroundtheworld.co.uk/2023/05/19/caithness-convalescence/

Some observations:

- much more birdy in June than May (unsurprisingly) 

- Sarclet has plenty of routes which are either bird-free or where it's easy to give them plenty of space, and it's easier to get a sight of routes you might want to avoid 

- Ellen's Geo is more problematic on both counts, and we left on our June recce without doing a route because of the feathered residents on Layer Cake (though steeper routes may have been less affected)

- Creaghan Righe was bird-free last May (though reading other comments it sounds like this isn't always the case!)

I hope that helps! Have a great trip if you do venture up there! Cheers, Dom 

Thanks all, seems the picture is that it varies a lot season to season.

So the next question is - who's been recently?

That's good info, Dom. Thanks

Went there yesterday. Everything from Big Sky Country rightwards is fine, but for the two E4s left of it you'd have to go near/past birds. I suspect this may often be the case this time of year, since those routes have better ledges.

We were at Ellens Geo yesterday. There were guillemots/razorbill (?) eggs on a ledge between Hundreds and thousands and So this is summer, low down and also to the right of STIS, just beow the top. Apart from those, there didn't seem to be that much bird activity.