Reflections

With the coming of the new year, thoughts of Nature turn inevitably to lists. Records of sightings from the previous year are sent off to the appropriate county recorder, and if one happens to be a county recorder, then there's the job of checking the data for accuracy before uploading to the relevant recording scheme. Less officially, there's the matter of the household bird lists: species seen during the year (anywhere); species seen in Orkney; species seen on patch (a notional area loosely defined as "Did we walk from home?"); and species seen from home (aka the garden list). Megan's quite competitive about these, me less so, but if I ever manage to be temporarily ahead, I milk it for all it's worth. I was roundly trounced (again) for 2023, but on a positive note, my year total for species seen was a personal best of 179, up 10 from the previous year.

And so to 2024. The Ramble on New Year's Day kicked things off nicely, but there's always a bit of self-imposed pressure to see all the common stuff as soon as possible. As it happens, some birds not usually seen in Orkney, which arrived with the big influx of species in the Autumn, are still around in woodland at Finstown. Inevitably, this is where we headed on the next calm day. We managed to score Great Spotted Woodpecker and Coal Tit, but missed out on several other long-staying scarcities. We then wandered down to the shore and Megan spotted an Iceland Gull, a species I hadn't seen for a few years. I'm guessing that it was probably in the area due to an extraordinary piscine event which happened in December which even made the BBC News, see here. Nature being Nature, the stranded fish did not go to waste, with gulls and corvids scavenging on the unexpected feast.

Iceland Gull

From the same spot, we also watched a mixed flock of Redshank and Turnstone foraging in the bay, wonderfully lit by the low Winter light. 

Several days later, I was working in the island of Stronsay. This trip had been postponed from the week before due to bad weather and the cancellation of ferry sailings. However, the replacement date coincided with another lovely calm and sunny day, although it was very chilly. At lunchtime, I ate my sandwiches whilst parked on a hill top which gave views to the west, revealing islands as it went: Stronsay, Shapinsay, West Mainland and Hoy.

Regular sufferers readers will know that I am partial to multiple horizons

When the work was completed, I took a walk along the beach by Rothiesholm Bay.

The island of The Horse of Copinsay, looking rather like a submarine floating above the horizon

Behind the dunes, the Loch of Rothiesholm

A Common Buzzard scanning the ground for food from a lofty perch

A Common Snipe settling down for the night.

Earlier this week, Megan and I had a walk around the RSPB reserve at Brodgar. Our previous trip to this site had been in late Summer when there were countless caterpillars on the fading heads of Angelica and Ragwort. Driving to the site, we mused that we wouldn't be seeing any of those on a cold Winter's day.

How wrong we were! A caterpillar (Woolly Bear) of the Garden Tiger moth

Whilst it wasn't sunny, the calmness delivered subdued reflections on the surface of Stenness Loch. Here's a few photos of the distant hills of Hoy, and then a bit closer, the village of Stenness itself.

The wintry weather which has been affecting the rest of the UK recently is turning up in Orkney today. The next wee while is going to be either interesting, scenic or unnavigable, depending upon how much snowfall we receive and whether the brisk breeze causes many snowdrifts.