Green Veined White – forty years ago in my nature notebooks
Butterflies are very noticeable insects. They have large bright wings and fly during the day. How they escape being eaten by birds …
Heron overhead – forty years ago in my nature notebooks
Sometimes there’s just too much wildlife going on here in Westray. We’re sitting on the beach in Pierowall Bay watching the seals …
Dandy Lions – forty years ago in my nature notebooks
Forty years ago I was twelve years old and had been using a Single Lens Reflex camera for a couple of years. …
Brittlestar – forty years ago in my nature notebooks
Forty years ago I was scouring the beaches at Tenby looking for any interesting living creatures. As is so common, I only …
Dog Whelk – forty years ago in my nature notebooks
One of the greatest things you can have as a child is a love of the natural world. To have the capacity …
Beadlet Anemone – forty years ago in my nature notebooks
Forty years ago today, on 11 August 1976, I was 12 years old, my family were on holiday in South Wales, and …
A Tystie with something tasty
Black Guillemots seem to be called Tysties on Orkney. This one has caught something tasty. It looks to me like a Butterfish. …
Daisies on the walk to Grobust
I love Grobust beach. The walk down to it from the car park is covered in daisies.
60,000 tonnes
The statistics say we catch 60,000 tonnes of edible crab around the British Isles each year. Imagine if we talked about humans …
Pierowall Poppy
There’s a single red poppy down by the bay. It’s so fragile. As fragile as life itself.
Let me sleep in a bed of clover
The white clover is beautiful. In many places in the world people are discouraged from growing it because it attracts bees which may sting people. Personally I’d rather have bees than lawyers.
Raiders of the lost Aak
Guillemots are known as Aaks in Orkney. This Aak egg has been raided from the cliffs at Noup Head and eaten.
A different view of a Puffin
I’m on the cliffs at Westray’s Castle o’ Burrian with the Puffin Whisperer. They are such curious birds that when she calls, …
5,000 quills
A strange beast of 5,000 quills has decided to pay us a visit.
Black William
The name Guillemot doesn’t sound English at all, and it isn’t. It’s French, from Guillaume, or William. Here then, are a few …
A sense of taste
Hardly any bird species have a sense of smell – and that probably means they have very little sense of taste either. …
Addicted to Fulmars
Yes, it’s true; I’m addicted to Fulmars.
Shelter
I’ve spent two entire days of my life crawling up the seashore measuring the height and diameter of limpets. The conclusion? Limpets …
Rock pool
Westray is full of wonderful rock pools. There are over 1,000 species of Sea Anemone on Earth. This looks like Actinia equina. …
Trivia – where three roads meet
The scientific name of the beautiful Groatie Buckie is Trivia arctica. Its name comes from the Latin trivia, the plural of trivium …
Limpets on the edge
These three limpets are living on the edge. Their shells have been buffeted and battered so much by stones carried by the …
Majestic Fulmar
Fulmars historically bred on the isolated island of St. Kilda. They spread into northern Scotland in the 19th century, and to the …
Green hair
This limpet has the best hair colour – a green fringe of seaweed. Beautiful.
I can also see a ghostly space among the barnacles where a companion limpet used to be. Limpets live 10 to 20 years. That one has gone to its watery grave.
A one egg policy
Fulmars have a strict one egg policy. There are 500,000 breeding pairs in the UK though, so perhaps that’s just as well.
The beauty of Thrift
The Sea Pink or Thrift as it’s also known is utterly stunning on Westray at this time of year.
Something’s been licking the rocks again
Something’s been travelling very slowly and licking the rocks from side to side. It must be the Limpets again.
Casting a shadow upon yourself
Evolution is a wonderful thing. Being grey above and white below is a classic countershading strategy used by many seabirds and often …