The first class Scottish Seabird Centre in North Berwick runs boat trips out to the Bass Rock, a plug of basalt rising 350 feet out of the Firth of Forth. The extraordinary sight of a dense cloud of gannets streaming to leeward off the Bass never fails to draw gasps from boat-borne visitors…

Once ashore and trudging up the zigzag path to the summit, a rhythmical sound like the surging of a giant kettle on the boil begins to make itself heard. By the time you reach the viewing place near the summit it has swelled to a roar. The smell of the colony hits you next, a stench that makes you gag. Then the spectacle claims your attention. Gannets are big – 3 feet long, with a wingspan nearly twice that – and they are beautiful, with china-white body and inner wings, long pointed black wingtips, and a buff-coloured head from which protrudes that sharp grey beak. The eyes are a remarkable cold blue.

Extract from Best Wild Places, Christopher Somerville