Loch Lomond National Nature Reserve

Our View

The ‘bonny, bonny banks’ of the Loch Lomond NNR straddle the Highland Boundary Fault, where the rocks of Highland and Lowland Scotland crashed together millions of years ago, forcing up mountains like the reigning peak of Ben Lomond (3,195ft). Take a ferry from Balmaha to the island of Inchcailloch, which lies on the Boundary Fault, to walk among the dense sessile oak woodland draped over its slopes and on a springtime carpet of wildflowers, while insect-eating migrant birds like warblers and redstarts dart from tree to tree and fallow deer hide among the trees. The reserve also includes the open expanse of the wetlands at the mouth of the Endrick Water. This habitat supports its own wildlife, from frogs to Scottish dock, a plant unique to this area. In winter the wetland floods, providing a home for overwintering wildfowl. A flock of over 200 rare Greenland white-fronted geese flies over 3,700 miles to roost on the open water and feed in the surrounding fields. They are joined by thousands of other wildfowl, including greylag and pink-footed geese.