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Loch Mealt is an inland fresh-water
loch ''Loch'' () is the Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Irish word for a lake or sea inlet. It is cognate with the Manx lough, Cornish logh, and one of the Welsh words for lake, llwch. In English English and Hiberno-English, the anglicised spelling ...
on the
Isle of Skye The Isle of Skye, or simply Skye (; gd, An t-Eilean Sgitheanach or ; sco, Isle o Skye), is the largest and northernmost of the major islands in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate from a mountainous hub dominated b ...
in Scotland. It lies close to Ellishadder and south of
Staffin Staffin ( gd, Stafain) is a district with the Gaelic name ''An Taobh Sear'', which translates as "the East Side", on the northeast coast of the Trotternish peninsula of the island of Skye. It is located on the A855 road about north of Portree ...
, on the eastern side of the
Trotternish Trotternish or Tròndairnis (Scottish Gaelic) is the northernmost peninsula of the Isle of Skye, in Scotland. Its most northerly point, Rubha Hùinis, is the most northerly point of Skye. One of the peninsula's better-known features is the Tro ...
peninsula.


Geography

This roughly square-shaped loch is about 1 km in length. It is located close to the sea and its eastern side comprises the spectacular tall sea-cliffs of Kilt Rock, made of
dolerite Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro, is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-grained ...
rock strata in many different colours."Kilt Rock, Staffin"
ukclimbing.com. Retrieved 25 July 2010. Kilt Rock boasts a dramatic waterfall created from the outflow of Loch Mealt.


Ecology

There are a number of bird species in this roadside loch.Its waters are favoured by
diving duck The diving ducks, commonly called pochards or scaups, are a category of duck which feed by diving beneath the surface of the water. They are part of Anatidae, the diverse and very large family that includes ducks, geese, and swans. The diving d ...
s. The Orkney charr ('' Salvelinus inframundus''), a char species that could be
vulnerable Vulnerable may refer to: General * Vulnerability * Vulnerability (computing) * Vulnerable adult * Vulnerable species Music Albums * ''Vulnerable'' (Marvin Gaye album), 1997 * ''Vulnerable'' (Tricky album), 2003 * ''Vulnerable'' (The Used album) ...
to extinction, has been found in Loch Mealt. Since the impact of Canadian
Arctic char The Arctic char or Arctic charr (''Salvelinus alpinus'') is a cold-water fish in the family Salmonidae, native to alpine lakes and arctic and subarctic coastal waters. Its distribution is Circumpolar North. It spawns in freshwater and popu ...
the lake upon the native char population is unknown and the taxonomic identity of the char deemed as ''Salvelinus inframundus'' is lacking essential information, a full
IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...
assessment cannot be made.


See also

*
List of lochs in Scotland This list of lochs in Scotland includes the majority of bodies of standing freshwater named as lochs but only a small selection of the generally smaller, and very numerous, lochans. This list does not currently include the reservoirs of Scotlan ...


References


External links

*{{commons category-inline
NG5065 : Dun Grianan, broch, Loch Mealt, Skye
Mealt Mealt Waterfalls of Scotland