Isle of May

Puffins, guillemots and kittiwakes pack the cliffs of the Isle of May in early summer, and grey seals haul out on the rocks below, on a national nature reserve a few miles off the Fife coast at the mouth of the Forth. Boats cross from Anstruther between April and September and land at Kirkhaven, on the sheltered east side; round-the-island trips also run from North Berwick, without landing.

The ruins of Isle of May Priory stand where one of Scotland’s earliest Christian churches was built. Near them is the Beacon, a squat stone tower put up in 1636 and reckoned Scotland’s oldest lighthouse, replaced as a working light in 1816 by Robert Stevenson’s taller tower nearby; the disused low light between the two is now a bird observatory, set up in 1934 and one of the oldest in Britain. Landings depend on the weather and the swell, so trips can be cancelled at short notice, and the island closes over winter while seals pup.