Mykines – (Summer) – (Video)

Mykines (Danish: Myggenæs) is the westernmost of the 18 main islands of the Faroese Archipelago.

It lies west of 7.5 degrees W, effectively putting it in the UTC-1 region. However, Mykines uses Greenwich Mean Time like the rest of the Faroes. The only settlement on the island is also called Mykines.

On the northern side of the island is the valley of Korkadalur, where there are great columns of basalt, called the Stone-wood. To the west of Mykines is the 1 km long islet Mykineshólmur, with several sea stacks clustered at its western end, where a lighthouse was built in 1909. A 40m-long footbridge connects its eastern end with Mykines.

Mykines belongs to the oldest part of the Faroe Islands and was formed about 60 million years ago. The Faroese basalt is divided into three phases of eruption: the lower and oldest, the middle, and the upper and youngest; the lowest formed by the eruption of low-viscosity lava through long fissures, forming flat volcanoes. In the sound between Mykines and Mykineshólmur, Holmgjogv, one can see one of the most abundant of such flows on the Faroes, with a depth of about 50 m. The interspersed layers of softer volcanic tuff between the layers of basalt are differentially eroded, so forming, especially on the steep northern side of the islet, some of the richest bird cliffs in the world. The highest peak on the island is Knúkur at 560 metres above sea level.

Large numbers of puffins and gannets inhabit Mykines and Mykineshólmur. On the rocks at the water’s edge there are colonies of cormorants, while the eroded tuff layers in the cliffs make perfect nesting ledges for guillemots and razorbills. On the grassy slopes above the bird cliffs, thousands of puffins have their burrows, and their guano fertilizes the slopes. Access to the puffin colony is subject to a fee.

Mykines, including Mykineshólmur, has been identified as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International because of its significance as a breeding site for seabirds, especially northern fulmars (50,000 pairs), Manx shearwaters (2500 pairs), European storm petrels (50,000 pairs), northern gannets (200 pairs), European shags (250 pairs), black-legged kittiwakes (23,000 Pairs), Atlantic puffins (125,000 pairs), common guillemots (9500 individuals) and black guillemots (200 pairs).