Whilst everyone was experiencing the start of the heatwave here in Kent this summer, I was travelling to the Orkney Islands in Scotland. When you look through my photos in this blog, you’ll notice that I was in full waterproofs and down jacket. It pretty much just rained and blew a hooley the whole time we were there. But it was so worth it to see the wildlife these enchanting islands had to offer.
For those of you that don’t know, I usually spend my holidays helping with wild bird ringing activities. It had been a while since my last visit to Bardsey Island pre-COVID to help with seabird colony monitoring. So, I thought this time it would be nice to help out at a different Bird Observatory. The plan was to spend a few days on mainland Orkney then take the ferry up to North Ronaldsay Bird Observatory to help with the monitoring work of the seabird colonies. However, nature had other plans for us, which I’ll talk about later on.
I’ve always loved Scotland and have explored quite a bit of the wilderness on the mainland, and I’ve always wanted to visit some of the smaller islands further north, Orkney seemed like a great place to start. The Orkney Islands are about ten miles off the coast of Caithness. They’re made up of around 70 islands, 20 of which are inhabited by people. Mainland Orkney is the largest of the islands and we started our trip by flying into the main town Kirkwall.
We decided to stay about a forty-minute drive away in South Ronaldsay, where some of the smaller islands are connected by causeways. Driving across these in our little hire car was quite exciting, I certainly wouldn’t like to cross one in a storm! St. Margaret’s Hope was a picturesque base to explore the area from, and the first exciting bird of the trip for me was an Eider swimming in the bay with her little chicks. I just melted! We would see a lot of these over the next couple of weeks rafting together for safety.
First stop was to check out some of the historical sites that mainland Orkney had to offer. The Orkney islands have been inhabited for at least 8500 years. Plus, some of the ancient settlements have been excavated and more discovered after storms in recent years.
The village of Skara Brae was top on our list of places to visit. It was intriguing to see how people used to live around 3100BC. Around the island there are also many standing stones from the same era. It’s incredible to think how people must have assembled them all those years ago. As usual I was easily distracted by the wildlife. At the Ring of Brodgar there must have been a mass emergence of Magpie Moths as they exploded out of the grass everywhere as we were sightseeing. The birdlife was taking full advantage of this glut of food on offer to feed their young.
At the Standing Stones of Stenness I probably had one the best wildlife moments of the trip. After ogling the stones for a while, I went back to the car to get my telescope, and my partner Steffan spotted something swimming in the loch behind us.
It was terrific to watch not only one, but two otters swimming and fishing right in front of us! One even hauled out on a rock and let us watch it for ages whilst it dried off. I was smiling from ear to ear the entire time.
As we were looking at the otters through the scope, we noticed a family of stoats having a scrap on the other side of the loch. I think you’ll agree that this was adorable to watch. Even though Stoats are an invasive species in Orkney, it was so cool to see them playing like this. Something that I certainly had never seen before.
As we explored the island over the next few days it was refreshing to see so many breeding waders. Every field seemed to have a pair of Oystercatchers and we often saw Curlews with small chicks skulking away into the grassland. What a fantastic habitat!
One of the main flowers we wanted to see were Scottish Primroses and after searching for a few hours (and after a nap in the sunshine!) Steffan finally spotted one of these tiny little purple flowers. Endemic to the north coast of Scotland, it is only found in Orkney and on the northern coast of the Scottish mainland and nowhere else in the world! At only 4cm tall this really was a needle in a haystack adventure. We seemed to find Northern Marsh Orchids everywhere we went, an orchid I had seen before but very glad to see again.
On our way back we stopped off at a tearoom for some lunch and noticed an island across from us. Turns out you could walk across it at high tide and as that was only half hour away, we decided to give it a go. And I’m so glad we did! I’ve seen my fair share of Puffins before, but at the Brough of Birsay they were very used to people and didn’t mind people walking on the path right next to them! What charming little birds, I’ll never get bored of seeing Puffins.
It was a pleasure to see breeding seabirds again, something we’re quite short on back home in Kent! We also saw Razorbills, Guillemots, Shags with large chicks and lots of Fulmars. On the way back to the car we spotted lots of Arctic Terns flying back and forth. Perching ourselves on a bench opposite a stack of rock erupting out of the sea, we watched the adults bringing fish back for their youngsters. What a privilege to see.
Since the start of our trip, we were on the lookout for a rare bee. After searching and searching we started to lose hope, but finally on our last day on Mainland Orkney, we found a patch of wildflowers that just looked perfect. We had seen similar meadows across the mainland, which is probably why the Great Yellow Bumblebee does so well in Orkney. It is restricted to Machair and other flower-rich areas in the Orkney Islands, Scottish islands and Caithness and Sutherland. It seems to like large areas of wildflower grassland and has a particular association with Red Clover. We spotted lots of them in the flowers in this meadow and the roses around another tearoom… I do tend to base our stops around food and this time it paid off!
North Ronaldsay
After cramming so much in on the mainland it was a nice respite to spend a couple of hours on the ferry to a much smaller island, North Ronaldsay. Sadly, even though we had heard of many reports of Orca sightings in the area we didn’t see any cetaceans on our trip. They seemed to turn up everywhere we had just been! When we arrived, first impressions of the Bird Observatory were impressive, with a fantastic view from the dining room. An afternoon’s birding turned up a Hooded Crow, very similar to the crows we get here but with grey flanks and mantle. It was also great to watch the many waders feeding along the shoreline.
North Ronaldsay is famous for it’s seaweed-eating flocks of sheep! It was like being a big kid again rock pooling at low tide and watching these sheep do their thing along the tideline. It was brilliant to see so many seals again as well.
All around the coast of North Ronaldsay both Grey Seals and Common Seals were very curious to see what we were doing. We were very careful not to disturb them when they hauled out around the island when the tide went out. We even saw a seal swimming with a radio tracker on it’s back one day! If you ever go to North Ron, I can highly recommend a tour around the lighthouse where you can walk up it for lovely views of the island from the top.
The birds of the trip for me had to be the Black Guillemots. I could’ve watched them bringing Butterfish back to their nests all day. Stark black birds with white flashes on their wings and bright red legs and bills. Just stunning!
When they sang, it sounded a very mournful high-pitched wail. I can imagine what sailors thought in the past hearing them for the first time on a foggy journey. They sound very ghoulish.
Watching the Fulmars raising their chicks was also a highlight. We were very careful not to get too close to them, which meant stepping off the footpath in places they were nesting so close to the paths. When disturbed a nesting Fulmar defends itself by vomiting their last meal over you. Not a smell I wish to experience first-hand!
Bird Flu
As I said at the start of this blog, we did originally intend to help with the Bird Observatory’s seabird monitoring work. However, this summer avian flu was still a huge issue for wild birds in Scotland. This is highly unusual as avian flu is usually associated with migrating birds in the winter, particularly geese. It is not usually an issue here in the UK during the summer.
The winter of 2021 saw thousands of Barnacle Geese perishing around the Solway Estuary in SW Scotland, and this new strain of HPAI Avian Flu continued to cause problems right through the breeding season. It was detected in Northern Gannets nesting in the world’s largest colony on Bass Rock in mid-June 2022. And in August there were still serious concerns for Scotland’s seabird populations. Because of this, ringing of seabirds was put on hold during the summer to prevent any spread of the disease via monitoring work.
Seabirds are particularly vulnerable to this strain of avian flu as they nest colonially making transmission easy. Scotland’s islands are also key breeding grounds for Bonxies, also known as Great Skuas. Skuas are the wolves of the skies in seabird colonies and often feed on carrion. When eating deceased seabirds they are also able to pick up avian flu. We did see several Great Skuas and several Arctic Skuas on North Ronaldsay doing well though.
I love how the Arctic Skuas come in two forms, a pale phase and a dark phase. A huge thank you to the Bird Observatory’s team for making us feel so welcome and letting us know about the wildlife on the island.
Thankfully we didn’t see too many signs of the disease on North Ron. Even though it was a bit disappointing not to help with the monitoring of the seabirds as we had planned, it was still a very relaxing place to spend the remainder of our holiday. We were able to help with the last of the Wader Chick monitoring. As I’ve mentioned before, it was amazing to see so many Curlew and Oystercatcher territories, and I have never ever heard Snipe “drumming” but it became the soundtrack of our trip. With hindsight it would’ve been great to island hop around the Orkney Isles as there are so many other islands in Orkney. And as I’ve still yet to see an Orca, these are all good excuses to go back for a visit someday!
