Gwennap Head identified steamships were wrecked, stranded or sank in the area. There have been none since 1923. The navigation markers feature as "the Cones of Runnel" in Hammond Innes's 1940 thriller "The Trojan Horse". Gwennap Head is part of the Porthgwarra to Pordenack Point Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) designated for its vegetation of waved maritime heath, and for being of considerable ornithological interest; especially for passage migrants. It is renowned for its relative abundance of passing marine bird species with many common species such as northern gannet ("Morus bassanus"), Manx shearwater ("Puffinus puffinus"), common guillemot, ("Uria aalge"), razorbill ("Alca
Yelkouan shearwater 2008 and vulnerable in 2012. Yelkouan shearwater The yelkouan shearwater, Levantine shearwater or Mediterranean shearwater ("Puffinus yelkouan") is a medium-sized shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae. Yelkouan shearwaters are 30–38 cm long, with a 76–89 cm wingspan. It has the typically "shearing" flight of the genus, dipping from side to side on stiff wings with few wingbeats, the wingtips almost touching the water. This bird looks like a flying cross, with its wing held at right angles to the body, and it changes from very dark brown to white as the dark upperparts and paler undersides are alternately exposed as