Craigleith South Web Cam
The Scottish Seabird Centre is a world leader in remote wildlife viewing. The webcam images you are watching are transmitted live, direct from the Seabird Centre’s cameras, which are located on the islands of the Firth of Forth and controlled by visitors at the Centre. The live images refresh every 5-10 seconds.
Craigleith Island
The seabirds are all starting to return to the islands and you should start to catch glimpses of them on our live webcams. You can also watch Wildlife Film Highlights from last season, including the seal pups born at the end of last year.
Craigleith is a small island less than 1/2 mile (0.8 kilometres) from the Seabird Centre at North Berwick where a rich variety of seabirds and marine life can be seen. During the winter, the island is home to a small colony of grey seals. The pregnant females arrive at the island in early October to pup and mate for the following year. The pups are born with white fluffy coats, reminiscent of their Arctic origins and the Seabird Centre's cameras observe their progress as they prepare to leave to fend for themselves at the end of December.
A series of Seal Diary Podcasts has been produced by the Seabird Centre - you can link to these here and find out how you can Adopt a Seal Pup online.
SOS PUFFIN
Craigleith Islands was also once one of the largest puffin colonies in Britain with over 28,000 pairs in 1999. Numbers crashed dramatically on Craigleith in recent years, to just a few thousand. This was caused by an alien plant invasion of tree mallow (Lavatera arborea), a giant woody plant which grows up to 9 feet (2.2 metres) tall, choking the puffin burrows and preventing the birds from nesting and rearing their chicks, called “pufflings”.
With funding from Viridor Credits, the Seabird Centre set up SOS Puffin in January 2007, a five year project to reinstate the puffins on Craigleith, managed by the Scottish Seabird Centre and funded by Viridor Credits. The SOS Puffin team of over 450 volunteers works throughout the year (outwith the puffin nesting season), carefully clearing areas of tree mallow. We're delighted to say that around 98% of the puffin burrows which had been cleared by volunteers were reoccupied by the puffins during the nesting season (April-July) last year. The Seabird Centre is an independent charity and all donations and sponsorships are reinvested in its education and conservation programmes. To find out more about the campaign or to join the team of volunteers, see SOS Puffin. You can also click here to Adopt a Puffin online which will help support the charity. Check out our news section for updates and if you’re interested in volunteering for SOS Puffin email us on info@seabird.org.
The Scottish Seabird Centre gratefully acknowledges support from the Heritage Lottery Fund, Scottish Natural Heritage and Tyne Esk Leader Funding in delivery of its conservation and education projects and events and exhibitions.
