This afternoon there was time to cycle to East Kirbest and walk to Inga Ness, skirting Skea Hill and to look out to sea with a posing cow for company.

It seems that in every field of valuable cattle is a magnificent beast – the even more valuable bull. Strange fellows, with curly hair, massive shoulders and an attitude, they are wary of anything that could threaten their domain. Here’s the Beast of Heatherbank in his pomp.

Judging at the Orkney County Show.

A character face, I’d say, rather than a beautiful or handsome one.

A landscape full of beautiful inquisitive cattle.  Wandering along the beach at Aikerness.

Sunset in the garden at Einar silhouettes the hair of the cattle rubbed onto the barbed wire in the fields.

Westray cattle are a breed apart. I’m used to seeing docile unthinking beasts in Devon. Barely alive, seemingly semi-conscious, the Devon grass grazers are unaware of anything save a single ancestral flick of the eyes to register whether danger approaches. Westray beef steers, however, have a different life. Curious beyond normal measure, they race to meet anyone, desperate for the novelty of something interesting on their horizons. They run in true herds as we cycle past them, seeming like stampedes of Wildebeest and they come to nuzzle us at the walls surrounding our house.

This beautiful fellow was our favourite.

Time now for evening meal of Orkney beef, slow cooked in Dark Island. At least I know it’s had a good life.