Note: All photographs credit to the author and already published on Instagram & FB.
Drinking from the sea…
Some swans from my neck of the water world drink from the sea from either side of the island.
A photoshoot from Peerie Voe (Spiggie) and Boddam Voe (Dunrossness) this spring.
Whereas mute swans favour lochs – such as Spiggie, or Strand at Gott to name but a few – to live by and feed from, they appear to have developed a taste for sea water.
Jet streams, storms and other follies from the wind being a myriad of birds to the island…
An annual or so occurrence, Spiggie Loch homes great white egrets. This one arrived in early March, and had to share the NW corner with a grey heron (wir haigrie) for a few weeks.
Such birds are both majestic but they compete for food.
Haigrie vs egret at Spiggie Loch, Mar 2022.
Both species usually do not mix as I have observed them in Camargue… Here, the grey heron feels on home ground, and displayed it a few times to the exotic visitor…
Canadian among greylags…
The joy when patience is rewarded: their backs so similar in any field, when foraging…
And yet what separates the two species becomes obvious when they lift their heads in the open air!
Canada goose, Spiggie, Mar 2022.
A joy to see!
First meeting of 2022 with a N. Wheatear
They, together with skylarks and meadow pipits announce the return of better days, da Voar, spring and longer sunnier days –
A renaissance and hope for life, as they return to their ancestral breeding grounds.
Every spring migration seems more and more precious and precocious, for our summer breeders appear to respond to the urge to fare chicks earlier and earlier every year… Mother Nature has her own ways.
Eye catchers
Magic encounters so far…
And from the sea…
My second sighting of a deep diver – a sperm whale that seemed to be stranded in some bay on the Atlantic side of the island.
Too long have I awaited this joyous month of April, free from March – this month of miracles & tears – even if gales and remnants of winter are clutching at straw…
The island is slowly emerging from its great seasonal slumber to start and display more vibrant colours as daylight is overriding black.
Too long have I looked at my homeworld from behind glass overlooking an empty loch. Even though I love the view, my eyes belong to the younglings facing me during term time.
Vista fae North Loch Drive.
Watched snow come and go, return since our passage through the Vernal Equinox – morning and dusk in many tones, yet always with the same magic, as our sun rise and glow over Mousa Isle, to colour this Western sky in the kerb just before Quarff.
Only one road fae S to N – also known as da meal road by many islanders whose ancestors in the 19th century, at a time of tattie famine, were (like in the rest of the British Isles, and most notoriously reported from Ireland) rewarded with a meagre meal to build roads… Attempting to survive dire times in the history of the isles. The cheapest labour anyone with gold could find…
Two other side roads in the South Mainland linking da tuns (or human settlements) were added to the great North-South road. Those remain my favourites. Teeming with life, mostly wild, they turn magical in spring.
Da Clumlie Road
This is where freedom begins.
For seasonal cycles on end, the magic remains intact. The return of life, skylarks (wir laverick) arriving with meadow pipits & oystercatchers (wir shalders) depending on the year, though after shelducks (our traditional earliest migrants) . Northern wheatears (wir steinshaakers) also land back in our fields and meadows by April.
The elegance of loons, red-throated divers follow suite.
Tis when our land and sky turn cacophonous on a boannie day i’da voar (a sunny spring day).
Skylark, Meadow Pipit and Northern Wheatear, Apr 2022.
April is when our gardens begin to share flowers and buds against all odds. Haily puckles and thin snowflakes might still rage at this time of year, all seem to resist so far…
I love their resilience.
A return to my old belfry – Sumburgh Head where I worked 20 years ago this month as an ambassador for nature (RSPB Nature Reserve) – proved wonderful with a friend on Monday. We lunched in style overlooking the magnificent panorama. Strangely enough, Martin Heubeck roamed my mind as I was watching empty cliffs. Yes, it was barely early April on a day of hellery (adverse weather). Yet kittiwakes, guillemots and razorbills are coming back every year in fewer numbers.
Tis no secret.
Our great marine birds signal the return of better days from April onwards. By the time you discover the headland around da Simmer Dim (the summer solstice) you are welcomed by bird calls from every directions, as well as constant gannets fly-pasts on their way to more and more distant fishing grounds. They are striving as a species around our coastline.
Yet barely weeks to Beltane and the galloping to the solstice. Tis when the island really turns cacophonous.
Meanwhile, we make do with chilling conditions, and brace ourselves for days battered by gales and hail that keep you alive (!)
Tis a world bathed by a sea and an ocean, geographically so far away from it all, sheltered, somehow from any torpor…
nordicblackbird 