Innis Mhòr

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Innis Mhòr
Gaelic name Innis Mhòr,
Meaning of name big island
Rubh' na h-Innse Moire in the foreground with Innis Mhòr beyond and the hills of Sutherland in the background.
Rubh' na h-Innse Moire in the foreground with Innis Mhòr beyond and the hills of Sutherland in the background.
Location
Innis Mhòr is located in Highland
Innis Mhòr
Innis Mhòr
Innis Mhòr shown within Highland Scotland
OS grid reference NH849862
Physical geography
Island group Outlier
Area 26 ha
Highest elevation <5 m[1]
Political geography
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Country Scotland
Council area Highland
Demographics
Population rank n/a [2]
Lymphad3.svg

Innis Mhòr is a tidal island in the Dornoch Firth of Easter Ross off the east coast of Scotland. It is about 26 hectares (64 acres) in extent and is largely, if not exclusively made up of moving sand dunes. No point on the island is greater than 5 metres (16 ft) above sea level. It has almost certainly never been permanently inhabited. The nearest settlement is Inver to the south, (which is 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) west of Portmahomack) and the town of Tain is 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) to the east.

Scotland's north and west coasts have over 700 islands all told.[3] Innis Mhòr is one of the few east coast islands, only 4 of which exceed 20 hectares (49 acres) in size.[4]

The extensive tidal Whiteness Sands lie between Innis Mhòr and the Easter Ross coast, with the headland of Rubh' na h-Innse Moire lying to the west of the island. Inland there is the Morrich More, an extensive area of dune grassland with wetland communities,[5] and a grade 1 SSSI, and RAF Tain, a bombing range on an alluvial plain known as the Fendom.[6] The area includes the most extensive area (260 hectares (1.0 sq mi)) of salt marsh in the Highlands.[7] The island is part of the Dornoch Firth National Scenic Area, one of 40 in Scotland.[8]

Local birdlife includes important populations of osprey (10 pairs representing about 10% of the UK breeding population), bar-tailed godwit, greylag goose and wigeon and numerous more common species such as curlew, dunlin, oystercatcher and teal.[9]

There are no other islands nearby, although a sandy spit to the south is marked as Innis Bheag (meaning "small island") on some maps and is also referred to as Paterson Island.[6][10]

References

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  • Road Atlas of Britain (1978) London; Bartholomew.

Notes

  1. "Get-a-Map". Ordnance Survey. Retrieved 29 November 2009.
  2. Area and population ranks: there are c. 300 islands >20ha in extent and 93 permanently inhabited islands were listed in the 2011 census.
  3. "Scotland in Short" (2003) (pdf) Scottish Executive. Retrieved 29 November 209.
  4. The others are Mugdrum in the Firth of Tay and the Isle of May and Inchkeith in the Firth of Forth.
  5. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.[dead link]
  6. 6.0 6.1 Hansom, JD and Black, SDL (1996) "The Geomorphology of Morrich More: Management Prescription Review" (pdf) SNH. Retrieved 29 November 2009.
  7. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. "National Scenic Areas". SNH. Retrieved 30 Mar 2011.
  9. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. Road Atlas of Britain (1978) p. 87

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