Qualla: Pentland Skerries https://qualla.com/pentland-skerries en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:25 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Pentland Skerries https://qualla.com/pentland-skerries Pentland Skerries: Introduction https://qualla.com/pentland-skerries/ Pettlandssker is what the Norsemen called them - the skerries of the Pentland. Four small islands of rock and turf rising out of one of the most dangerous channels in Britain, halfway between mainland Scotland and Orkney. They are uninhabited now, and for most of their history they were uninhabited then, too. Sheep grazed there. Lighthouse keepers tended their lamps. The seabirds nested in their thousands. The MV Priscilla ran aground on them on 18 July 2018, which is roughly the kind of thing the skerries have specialised in for as long as there have been ships.

Read more: Pentland Skerries on Qualla

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/v/pentland-skerries-wp/gfmv-pentland-skerries-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Pentland Skerries: Four Islands, One Story https://qualla.com/pentland-skerries/ There are four of them. By far the largest is Muckle Skerry - muckle meaning big in the Scots vernacular - a low platform of grass and rock perhaps 35 hectares across, the only island substantial enough to have ever supported a human presence. To its south, in a line running west...

Read more: Pentland Skerries on Qualla

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/v/pentland-skerries-wp/gfmv-pentland-skerries-four-islands-one-story.mp3 0:06 2 full Pentland Skerries: Two Lighthouses, 1794 https://qualla.com/pentland-skerries/ Muckle Skerry has a pair of lighthouses, both lit in 1794. They were among the very first of the Northern Lighthouse Board's installations, built when the Pentland Firth was becoming busier with North Sea trade and the death toll from wrecks was climbing fast. Two towers rather t...

Read more: Pentland Skerries on Qualla

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/v/pentland-skerries-wp/gfmv-pentland-skerries-two-lighthouses-1794.mp3 0:06 3 full Pentland Skerries: An Important Bird Area https://qualla.com/pentland-skerries/ BirdLife International has designated the skerries part of the Pentland Firth Islands Important Bird Area - a recognition that these little rocks support breeding populations of seabirds significant on a national, even European scale. Common guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes, fu...

Read more: Pentland Skerries on Qualla

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/v/pentland-skerries-wp/gfmv-pentland-skerries-an-important-bird-area.mp3 0:06 4 full Pentland Skerries: A Channel That Does Not Forgive https://qualla.com/pentland-skerries/ The Pentland Firth is one of the few stretches of water in the world where the tides genuinely do create standing waves and overfalls big enough to threaten shipping. The Atlantic floods then drains the entire North Sea through this narrow gap twice a day, and the skerries sit ri...

Read more: Pentland Skerries on Qualla

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/v/pentland-skerries-wp/gfmv-pentland-skerries-a-channel-that-does-not-forgive.mp3 0:06 5 full