Stromness is a small town on the west coast of the West Mainland of Orkney. Its known maritime history encompasses Viking seafarers, the 18th Century herring fishing boom and, these days, a fleet of recreational diving boats taking adventurous folk to explore the World War One wrecks beneath Scapa Flow. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Hoy Sound to the south and the sheltered inlet of Hamnavoe to the east, Stromness faces the sea.
We live on the other edge, to the north, just where a town of approximately 2500 souls gives way to fields and moorland. This statement must be tempered with the phrase "for now", for even the peaceful haven that is Orkney is as susceptible as anywhere in the UK to rampant house building and the spread of human habitation at the expense of wildness. Indeed, three houses are imminently to be built around us, lessening the liminal feeling of our home as a place connecting urban and rural. This won't be completely a bad thing, as the new homes will come with planted hedges, which might actually increase the avian biodiversity of our garden, but as our horizons diminish, it will inevitably feel less wild.
This wildness is typified by a bird of wet pasture and open moorland, the Curlew, long of bill and short of days. Sadly, the species' numbers are in freefall, the UK breeding population has halved in the last 25 years, it is virtually extinct as a breeding species in Ireland, and it has been lost from lowland sites throughout England. Orkney is a place where Curlews (known as Whaups locally) can still hold their own (notwithstanding the current problem with the non-native invasive Stoat), and rare is the day, any time of year, when you won't see or hear one.
Moving to Stromness from the wilds of Orphir parish, we were concerned that we would miss these large and charismatic waders, but happily that has not been the case. We are fortunate to have an area of wet pasture nearby which is great habitat for Curlews, and our Spring days are filled with their bubbling calls.
Actually, not just the days, because recently I was roused from the depths of slumber at some ungodly early hour before dawn, aware that a Curlew was singing, although in my befogged state, I couldn't immediately figure out why it sounded different. Now, from an early age (I am so old, in fact, that I remember lowland-breeding Curlews), I have been used to hearing the song of the Curlew as it comes in to land, a graceful descending glide soundtracked by several drawling notes which merge into a rippling trill or 'bubbling'. It is very evocative, and I surmise that this is one of the principal reasons why Orkney feels like home to me.
The individual I was listening to before sun up, seemed to have become stuck on the drawling notes, so instead of three or four "oo-ot"s, they just went on and on, sometimes louder, sometimes softer, seemingly ad infinitum. Presumably, I drifted off to sleep again before the situation resolved itself.
Then, yesterday afternoon, I was unloading the car by the shed, and I realised that I was hearing the bird again, although now I was a little more conscious and could work out what was happening. The Curlew was gliding in a large circle, over the valley of the burn, over the roofs of the houses on the edge of Stromness, over the old mill and its neighbouring fields, uttering the opening notes all the while. Then it would quickly regain its original height, looking not unlike a huge Snipe taking off, and begin another circuit. Megan joined me, and we watched, fascinated, as the bird circled clockwise for half a dozen revolutions before reversing direction and carrying on around the circuit, still singing the same notes.
It was absolutely magical to be stood in the shed doorway as the Curlew flew directly overhead, a moment so savoured that I didn't even contemplate nipping indoors for my camera. We lost track of time and the number of circuits the bird made, but as the sun came out from behind a cloud and the light improved, I was tempted by the idea of a photograph, because how often would we have the opportunity to be this close to a singing Curlew? No sooner had the thought formed in my mind, than the Curlew stopped being a stuck record and landed in a field at the other side of the valley with a triumphant bubbling flourish.
This morning my unofficial Curlew alarm woke me at 4.10am. When, later, I mentioned this to Megan, she informed me that I should've heard it at 2am!
This Sunday, 21st April, is World Curlew Day.
Photo: Graeme Walker, North Ronaldsay, Orkney, 2011
Sound: David Pennington on xeno-canto, Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, 2021
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