Serves me right, I shouldn't have mentioned 'Spring', it brought virtually instant retribution in the form of several days of southeasterly gales. However, just before they arrived, there were a few more pleasant moments. A walk at Brodgar was graced with a Skylark singing from on high for all he was worth, in defiant opposition to (in no particular order) other male Skylarks, hungry raptors, the gusty wind and gravity. There were ducks aplenty on both Harray Loch (freshwater) and Stenness Loch (brackish), as well as in field pools and scrapes. Just over the brow of a low hill from the Neolithic stone circle, a piece of rough ground offered up a Short-eared Owl on a fence post. When I tried to film it, the owl immediately took to the air, and all I managed was 7 seconds of shaky, wind-blasted footage. Back home, I was able to turn off the wind noise, and slow down the footage so that it wasn't so jerky, resulting in a slo-mo SEO. Some of the afore-mentioned waterfowl, T...