North Hoy, Orkney

Acquisition of North Hoy, part of the Island of Hoy in the Orkneys. The Hoy reserve is a mixture of moorland and sea-cliffs, and includes the famous Old Man of Hoy rock stack.  A high percentage of the UK’s great skuas (bonxies) breed on the moor, along with red grouse, dunlins and golden plovers. Red-throated divers nest on the hill lochans, and the reserve holds important numbers of breeding birds of prey. Seabirds, including fulmars, puffins, guillemots, razorbills and kittiwakes nest on the cliffs. The Hoy Reserve also contains Britain’s most northerly native woodland in the sheltered valley of Berriedale; primarily a birch wood, it also consists of aspen, rowan, hazel and willows.