Coastal Mammals

A combination of cliffs, rocky headlands and sheltered voes creates a varied coastal habitat for both grey and common seals. In summer large shoals of fish attract porpoises, dolphins and whales inshore. Noss Sound is the best area to look for them.

The voes on the east side are the best for otter watching.
 

Wild Flowers

During summer there is a succession of wild flowers.

Roadside verges and pastures blaze with a colourful tapestry of buttercups, bird's foot trefoil, red campion, clovers and orchids.

Ditches and wet areas glow with golden marsh marigold and the brilliant yellows of mimulus and yellow flag.

On the moorland look for the tiny white flowers of heath bedstraw, the sapphire gems of heath milkwort, the yellow stars of tormentil and the delicate pinks of the heath-spotted orchid.

Birdlife

Bressay provides a mosaic of habitats which support a variety of wild flowers and breeding birds. The summer moorland is the haunt of species such as great and Arctic skua, curlew, golden plover, common gull, skylark and meadow pipit.

Elegant red throated divers breed on many of the hill lochs whilst fields and pastures echo to the calls of waders like oystercatcher, lapwing, redshank and snipe.

Tiny Shetland wrens, rock pipits and ringed plover breed along the coastline with Arctic terns, eiders and black guillemots patrolling offshore.